Snapshots

"You press the button, we do the rest." Kodak used this slogan in ads for the first box cameras introduced by George Eastman in 1888. From then on, virtually anybody could take pictures-the snapshot was born! Without exception, these amateur photos capture what are essentially ordinary moments-yet every trace of banality disappears once they are removed from the context of personal biography. Sometimes the moment is right, and art just "happens"-in the form of double or multiple exposures, slipped horizons, orcurious details entering the picture because the camera moved as the shutter was released. Christian Skrein, an artist and a former professional photographer, has tracked down and collected thousands of these treasures that can be viewed part of our visual heritage. His impressive selection of photographs is arranged thematically and presented in this beautiful book, which is a work of art in its own right. At the heart of this collection is the condition humaine: joy and pain, visualized in the decisive moment in which history stands still for a fraction of a second. Exhibition schedule: MAK, Vienna, March 24 - May 23, 2004 o Nederlands Foto Museum, Rotterdam, June 26 - September 9, 2004 o Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Cologne September 29 - November 28, 2004 o Odense Klaedefabrik Fotomuseet April 16 – June, 12, 2005 o Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin, 2006