Darkrooms of Photography

Born in 1953 in Chur, Hans Danuser is a pioneer of contemporary Swiss photography. He became internationally renowned through his series "IN VIVO" (1980-89), and his work is held in collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Kunsthaus Zürich and Fotomuseum Winterthur. Danuser is a visiting professor at ETH Zurich and has lectured widely at institutions including the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig and Humboldt University in Berlin.

This book presents an overview of the work of Swiss photographer Hans Danuser over the last 35 years and places it in wider artistic and social contexts. At the end of the 1970s Danuser substantially contributed to the "reinvention" of photography as an artistic medium and shaped its development through the myriad possibilities of the analogue darkroom. In 1980 Danuser began his breakthrough cycle "IN VIVO," whose 93 black-and-white photos address taboos then prevailing in the research and power centers of industrial society in Europe and the USA prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the break-up of power blocs and the rise of globalization. Topics that influence and transform society have been the focus of Danuser's subsequent large-format, and often site-specific installation works. With an emphasis on content and media-specific research, Danuser's photos furthermore examine light in all its subtle nuances-from black to white, its deep shadows and transitional gray areas.