Richard Schindler

Artist, teacher, founder of the Institute for Visual Profiling and author of several theoretical texts, Richard Schindler has focused for many years on the structural implications of images and their inherent relationship between surface and meaning. In his book Landschaft verstehen ('Understanding Landscape') published in 2005, he subjects the wind farms on Schauinsland to visual landscape analysis and takes a fresh look at the roots of our perception: he uses historical visual material to show that landscape is not a natural phenomenon but a designed environment. For he is not interested in the reproduction of reality but in the profound reflection on reality brought about by artistic treatment. In the case of his photograph of a mysteriously floating sofa, it is precisely because Schindler draws upon the existing reality he encounters, without adding anything to or subtracting anything from it, he is able to question our individual apprehension of reality.