Sean Snyder


Untitled, 2007

Library of the historical 
archive of the archbichopric Cologne, Gereonstraße 16, Tue, Thu, Fri 9:00 am – 4:00 pm, Wed 9:00 am – 1:00 pm

In his photographs, texts, and video works, American artist Sean Snyder (*1972) investigates the role ascribed to mass media in the construction of urban space. In doing so, he directs his attention to the mechanisms of media representation and their ideological implications. His contribution to “Models for Tomorrow: Cologne” is a set of reference text material on the typology of a new institution for contemporary art. Snyder’s loose genealogy of various institutional models is condensed into a specific proposal for a new exhibition site and ways to mediate it. The work stems just as much from personal experience as from archival image and text material on existing museum sites. The visual codes of an extremist propaganda ma-chine are also integrated into his research, while their suitability as communication tools is tested. This turns his proposal into an institutional platform that crosses the axes of time and ideological boundaries to describe an 
expanded sphere of action.