Book: Third Life by Norbert Schoerner
Ever since a commission from The Face magazine kick-started his career in 1989, German-born Norbert Schoerner has been speeding around the globe capturing evocative images to grace magazines like Vogue and advertising campaigns for fashion brands, including Prada and Comme des Garçons.
In his rare breaks between commissions, Schoerner has also been quietly building up a large archive of personal works. The photographer has an uncanny knack of capturing very precise moments in time, resulting in a highly charged series of images. Now London-based publisher Violette Editions has brought us a compelling selection of seven years worth of unseen material in a polished new monograph, titled 'Third Life'.
Comprising images shot for his ‘sketchbook’, the book is a design-led travelogue created in response to our increasingly digital world. ‘It’s inspired by the flood of images we encounter through omnipresent devices,’ explains Shoerner. ‘The process of isolating what matters to me forms the foundation of the works.’
His photographs are largely devoid of people, which imbues them with a strange feeling that something important is about to happen. Agrees Schoerner: 'I think their absence suggests a variety of scenarios that could take place moments later.’ Shot largely on his travels in America and Asia, the works are mainly urban and rural landscapes, offering only a few abstract glimpses of the human figure. There's a distinctly graphic quality to the architectural angles, patterns and forms he shoots, which give them an added punch.
The book, which contains insightful essays by writers Tom Morton and Geoff Cox, intriguingly opens with what seems like a stream of nonsensical text, and closes with a single, curious thumbnail image. The text is in fact the first photograph Schoerner ever took, which has been scanned and transcribed from film into pure information, while the thumbnail is the original snapshot. ‘It's the first picture I ever took and then subsequently processed at the local chemist’s: My father in our back garden, reading a copy of 'Der Spiegel'.
Designed by London-based Micha Weidmann, Third Life is elegantly bound so that its spine protrudes in an unusual fashion. ‘We wanted to diverge from the classic bound book and make the binding look like a white slab containing the pictures,’ comments Weidmann.
The interior is arranged as a cinematic narrative, with varying picture sizes and occasional ‘blank’ pages that simply display the page number in the centre. ‘The “blank” pages…might be read as cinematic ellipses, or as digital files that have yet to load,’ says Tom Morton in his introduction. Meanwhile, the text has been kept minimal in an unassuming grey, so as to let the images take centre stage.
‘We wanted to create an intelligible and pure layout concept which plays with the idea of the classic art book in a dynamic manner,’ says Weidmann. Thanks to a long editing process, during which Schoerner continuously added new images, the project took almost two years to complete, but having known each other for over a decade, the pair had a mutual understanding from the start.
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Lauren Ho is the Travel Director of Wallpaper*, roaming the globe, writing extensively about luxury travel, architecture and design for both the magazine and the website. Lauren serves as the European Academy Chair for the World's 50 Best Hotels.
-
‘I wanted to create a sanctuary’ – discover a nature-conscious take on Balinese architecture
Umah Tsuki by Colvin Haven is an idyllic Balinese family home rooted in the island's crafts culture
By Natasha Levy Published
-
‘Concrete Dreams’: rethinking Newcastle’s brutalist past
A new project and exhibition at the Farrell Centre in Newcastle revisits the radical urban ideas that changed Tyneside in the 1960s and 1970s
By Smilian Cibic Published
-
Mexican designers show their metal at Gallery Collectional, Dubai
‘Unearthing’ at Dubai’s Gallery Collectional sees Ewe Studio designers Manu Bañó and Héctor Esrawe celebrate Mexican craftsmanship with contemporary forms
By Rebecca Anne Proctor Published
-
Discover Eve Arnold’s intimate unseen images of Marilyn Monroe
‘Marilyn Monroe by Eve Arnold’, published by ACC Art Books, is a personal portrayal of an icon
By Hannah Silver Published
-
10 books culture editor Hannah Silver recommends this winter
Lacking inspiration over what to read next? Wallpaper* culture editor, Hannah Silver, shares her favourite books
By Hannah Silver Published
-
‘Gas Tank City’, a new monograph by Andrew Holmes, is a photorealist eye on the American West
‘Gas Tank City’ chronicles the artist’s journey across truck-stop America, creating meticulous drawings of fleeting moments
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
'I’m So Happy You Are Here': discover the work of Japanese women photographers
Subtitled ‘Japanese Women Photographers from the 1950s to Now’, this new monograph from Aperture is a fascinating insight into a critically overlooked body of work
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
How the west won: Ivan McClellan is amplifying the intrepid beauty of Black cowboy culture
In his new book, 'Eight Seconds: Black Cowboy Culture', Ivan McClellan draws us into the world of Black rodeo. Wallpaper* meets the photographer ahead of his Juneteenth Rodeo
By Tracy Kawalik Published
-
‘Package Holiday 1968-1985’: a very British love affair in pictures
‘Package Holiday’ recalls tans, table tennis and Technicolor in Trevor Clark’s wistful snaps of sun-seeking Brits
By Caragh McKay Published
-
‘Art Exposed’: Julian Spalding on everything that’s wrong with the art world
In ‘Art Exposed’, Julian Spalding draws on his 40 years in the art world – as a museum director, curator, and critic – for his series of essays
By Alfred Tong Published
-
Marisol Mendez's ‘Madre’ unpicks the woven threads of Bolivian womanhood
From ancestry to protest, how Marisol Mendez’s 'Madre' is rewriting the narrative of Bolivian womanhood
By Sofia de la Cruz Published