Michael von Graffenried

Michael von Graffenried was born in Bern, Switzerland in 1957. Now living and working between Paris, Bern and Brooklyn, he started as a self-taught photojournalist in 1978, travelling the world for numerous publications and now works on long term projects using different kinds of media frames, such as outdoor campaigns on public billboards or film. His documentary film War without Images, produced together with Mohammed Soudani, was first screened at the Locarno filmfestival in 2002. He has exhibited his pictures widely in Switzerland and France, as well as in New York, Algiers, Hong Kong and Beirut. His photographs are in the permanent collections of the Swiss Foundation for Photography, Winterthur, Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne, Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and several other major European collections. His work appeared in many books, such as Sudan, a forgotten war (Benteli 1995), Naked in Paradise (Dewi Lewis 1996), Inside Algeria (Aperture 1998), Cocainelove (Benteli 2005), Eye on Africa (2009) or Bierfest (Steidl 2014). Michael von Graffenried was given the title of Chevalier des Arts et Lettres of the French Légion d’Honneur in 2006 and the Dr. Erich Salomon Prize of the German Society of Photography 2010. He was
the third Swiss photographer to obtain this award after René Burri and Robert Frank. In 2010, the Maison européenne de la photographie in Paris held a major retrospective exhibition of his works. Always seeking to take an incisive and singular look at the world, he has shifted towards a more conceptual approach to photography and is now involved in several artistic and media projects.

Submitted by Galerie Esther Woerdehoff