Interview with Dennis Schnieber

von Florian Kazimirski | Sep 25, 2018 | blog, Dennis Schnieber, Interviews, Kunst/Art

Dennis was born and raised in asmall village in Brandenburg, and now lives and studies in Berlin. His works are created exclusively analog. That means on analogue film material. Like in the old times. For Dennis Schnieber, photograpy is a constant controversy between his eyes and the world that surrounds him.

In the tradition of the New Topographics movement his style is characterized by a certain restraint and a preference for the formal arrangement. He is eager to experiment and always on the lookout for what lies dormant between the obvious.

Analogue photography of the periphery

GM: Dear Dennis, welcome to the Gallery Minimal! GM: Dear Dennis, welcome to the Gallery Minimal! Our interviews always start the same: where are you from? Where are you? Where are you going?
I’m from a small village in Brandenburg, have been living and studying in Berlin for a few years.
GM: What is your photographic style?
In my personal case, it is first and foremost the use of analogue footage with which I learned to photograph and of which did not release me to this day.

To be limited in the number of available recordings, to always have the economy in mind – this also shapes the seeing and recognizing of motives. However, I believe that artistic practice in general is, to a significant degree, the result of one’s own development, the everyday environment, self-awareness – circumstances that are always in flux.
It’s hard for me to speak of a style, and I do not know if it matters at all.

Conceptual practices and the urge to think photography alternately

Although my current work is often characterized by a certain restraint, formal arrangement, and affinity for the linear, I enjoy taking note of aesthetic breaks over the years and suspecting that this is far from over.
GM: Are there other artists who influence you in your seeing and creating? And if so, what is it that inspires you?

Conceptual practices and the urge to think photography alternately always inspires me because it breaks conventions and patterns and shows that so much is possible. Cristina de Middel, Philip-Lorca diCorcia and Sergey Bratkov could be mentioned here. As far as my own imagery is concerned, a lot of it leans on the representatives of the New Topographic Movement, the New Objectivity and contemporary developments.

A dispute between eye and world

Thomas Ruff, Todd Hido and Paul van Bueren – to make an entirely random choice – gave me a lot of inspiration. At the same time, I also feel connected to the gesture of William Egglestone when it comes to emphasizing the unstressed, and admire documentarists like Julian Röder.
GM: As we are touching the subject: What does minimal photography mean for you?
Minimal photography for me goes hand in hand with a certain way of perceiving the environment: the experimental and explorative look at what lies dormant between all the obviousness.

GM: Is there one of your pictures that you could call your favorite picture?
The picture that I will shoot next.
GM: Thanks for those insights Dennis! One last question: Are there some last works you want to share with us about your work?
Overall, I understand my work as a pure dispute between eye and world. We are always and everywhere surrounded by photographic distorted images and perversions of reality, and it is difficult to exclude ourselves from trying to produce an aesthetic value all the time. It has features of a fetish, but it also has something deeply comforting to cut out any fragments of great heterogeneity and sink into a sight of something. But I only speak for myself.
GM: Thank you.

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