Schmitt-Prym’s strange art

             Quality art, for the Russian formalists, produces ostranenie, a neologism that can be translated as strangeness.

             To stand before great art does not allow us to keep passivity. Something within us moves. And it moves in various directions, just like Schmitt-Prym’s obturator.

             Greeks preferred to call it epiphany, word derived from epiphanós, which meaning is place where holy manifests. What we see is not real. Or maybe the real is infinitely more complex than we imagined. Just like Schmitt-Pryms’ photos.

             Later on, Longino called “sublime” this strange effect of great art. Maybe because above all it surprises us. It is impossible to look at Schmitt-Prym’s photos without being perplexed.

             As I contemplated (here comes the holy again) Schmitt-Prym’s photos, these three theoretical concepts (strangeness, epiphany and sublime) were exactly what came into my mind.

             Great art speaks by itself. It does not need commentators, critics, evaluators. Before it, it is enough to say: “Parla!” as Buonarroti did.

Then it speaks, like Schmitt-Prym’s photos.

             Charles Kiefer, writer.

Translation: Andrea Mariz