Horst Ademeit's work is different from many of the artists I have looked at most obviously because he never identified himself as one. He was a German artist who, after being rejected by teachers like Joseph Beuys, turned to more concrete methods of working, leaving any type of artistry behind. As he grew older he became constantly plagued by the idea that there were "invisible rays" of radiation emanating from his surroundings. He turned to his camera as a means of documenting these sources but also in an attempt to understand what was happening to him.
Ademeit's work is primarily in polaroid, though it moved to digital later. As a documenter he was interested in the immediacy of the process as well as the space on each image where he could take notes on what he had seen. As an artist, or one trained to think artistically, he became interested in the life of this type of photographs. Polaroids, like no other image, have only one true replica (this was mostly true when there were no scanners, digital cameras, etc). With film negatives there was a potential for many replicas, but the polaroid offered a one-shot development that could only exist in that one space.
I saw Ademeit's work this weekend and, although, subtle, the sheer amount of them is striking to me. They have an interesting existance, especially because they were made by someone who has never considered himself an artist (although they are now priced at over $1,200 each). This idea of documenting things and taking serious not of them is intriguing to me in so many ways. I also just think the images are beautiful. Though they can be banal, or seem like snapshots, they have an intentionality that I think is applicable in any photographic medium.
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