Buochs

1956

Not on view

Returned to lender

This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.

Arnold Odermatt likely never expected his photographs to find their way into a museum. For more than forty years, the Swiss traffic officer documented car crashes in a remote alpine province, recording evidence for court cases and insurance claims. But once the human drama of an accident had been cleared away—the victims removed and responders dispersed—Odermatt would make a few photographs just for himself. In these less evidentiary, more cerebral compositions (later published by his son), mangled guardrails and dented fenders assume a sculptural quality, suspending, if only for a moment, the scene’s certain trauma. Here, as a convertible cab brims with water, one could almost forget that it ever held anything else.

Artwork Details

Overview

Exhibition History

Title: Buochs
Artist: Arnold Odermatt (Swiss, born 1925)
Date: 1956
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions: Image: 11 13/16 × 15 3/4 in. (30 × 40 cm)
Framed: 18 × 22 in. (45.7 × 55.9 cm)
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee Collection
Curatorial Department: Photographs