WINTERTHUR.- As one of the most influential Swiss photojournalists over the past 40 years, Andri Pol (b. 1961) has received multiple accolades for his work. In this period his photographs have played a key role in defining the visual identity of print media outlets in Switzerland and other countries such as Zeit Magazin, DU, Das Magazin, Facts and GEO.

Now, the photographer is set to turn 65, and the occasion is being marked with a major solo exhibition titled Andri Pol – Poliversum timed to coincide with his birthday. This exhibition is being presented across all three display spaces at Fotostiftung Schweiz, including the Foyer. As a retrospective, it showcases both the essence of Pol’s photography and the sheer diversity of his thematic interests in a career stretching back to the late 1980s. There is an emphasis on the genres of photographic reportage and portraiture alongside the observations of daily life that Pol captured around the world. Although his travels often took him to remote locations such as Tuvalu, he has also frequently returned to Switzerland, Japan and China, which served as geographical bases for his larger, long-term projects.

Yet his career in the field of photography is distinctive for another reason too: he acted in the comparatively rare dual role of photographer and photo editor for the Swiss edition of internationally renowned reportage magazine GEO from 2001 to 2015. Some of his photographic projects were commissioned, while others – including many of his equally successful book publications – were pursued on his own initiative. He was also given the opportunity to curate picture columns for extended periods of time in magazines with a wide readership, including the ‘Bild der Schweiz’ (Image of Switzerland) column for Facts, ‘Unvergessliche Bilder’ (Unforgettable Images) for Weltwoche, ‘Pol Position’ for SBB-VIA and ‘Parallelgeschichten’ (Parallel Stories) and ‘Ein Tag im Leben von…’ (A Day in the Life of…) for Das Magazin, the Saturday supplement of Zurich daily newspaper Tages-Anzeiger.

Pol has spent decades honing the composition and imagery of his photos with his recognisably assured style and complex visual wit. Poliversum provides an overview of these diverse pictorial ‘poliverses’ by structuring them into insightful thematic sections: Origins, Where Is Japan, Global Village, Art Worlds, Gruezi, Inside CERN (all in Room 1); Images of Humanity (Room 2); The picture column ‘A Day in the Life of…’ (Library Passage); and Publications (Foyer).

Pol’s images combine depth with subtle visual wit and a keen sense of the unusual in everyday life. He records people, places and situations, mingling perceptiveness with an irreverent, tongue-in-cheek attitude. His portraits appear spontaneous while at the same time suggesting exact composition; his photographic reportages offer up surprising angles on social, cultural and political realities and identities. Pol’s ability to precisely capture complex themes makes him one of the most arresting voices in documentary photography today. His photographic universe invites viewers to marvel, chuckle and make discoveries – it is visually intelligent, closely attuned to the world and full of an idiosyncratic, independent spirit.





Pol’s works reflect not only on our contemporary world but also, closer to home, on definitions of nationality and terms such as ‘Swissness’. The curiosity underpinning his work is what prompts his ‘immersion’ into various milieus that can range from an entire country to a particular community or the life led by an individual artist or celebrity. For his book Inside CERN, for example, Pol acted as a visual anthropologist conducting field research within an environment that almost resembles a small town. It serves as the infrastructure for an extremely specific kind of ‘gated community’ – namely, a global elite of particle physicists who have been researching and working on the outskirts of Geneva for decades.

As a photographer, Pol could be described as a ‘seeker’ of images yet he is a ‘creator’ of them too. While he registers situations intuitively and captures them photographically, he also knows full well how to influence situations (without directly staging them in any way). He practises social engineering in order to end up with a perfect result. This is particularly true of Pol’s portraits, which feature figures from the worlds of politics, culture and industry as well as ‘ordinary’ people in their everyday surroundings. These portraits come across as both spontaneous and consciously orchestrated, thanks to his meticulous research into the location, combined with improvised strategies for communicating during the sittings.

This is what consistently gives Pol’s work its enormous appeal without him kowtowing to the visual mainstream or populism. That is a major challenge and a rare achievement in itself, even more so when you think that he has been doing it for decades – and, all being well, will continue to do so for years to come.

When Andri Pol recently made a living bequest of his photographic holdings to Fotostiftung Schweiz, the transfer of this largely digital archive has laid the groundwork for determining how the foundation could approach hybrid archives of this kind. It enables new technical and archival standards to be established for future accessions, too. As part of this wider process, the photographer and the curator worked together to choose the pictures for the exhibition from a total of over 60,000 images.

In parallel with the exhibition, a book titled Welt, focusing on Andri Pol’s photo reportages, is being published by Scheidegger & Spiess; it has been designed by Müller+Hess and includes a text written by Valentin Groebner.

Andri Pol, born 27.08.1961 (Bern, BE)

Matura 1982. Studied at the University of Bern, 1983/84. Trained as an art teacher at the School of Design in Lucerne, 1984–1989. Worked as a freelance photographer, primarily for the Basler Zeitung, 1990–1992. Royal College of Art, London, Department of Photography, 1992/93.

Photo editor for UBS’s magazines, 2000–2002. Editorial team for Das Magazin, 2001/02. Contract photographer and picture editor for GEO Schweiz, 2001–2015. Lecturer at the Medienausbildungszentrum MAZ in Lucerne.

Published in ZEIT Magazin, DU, Das Magazin, STERN, Süddeutsches Magazin, GEO, Merian, NZZ am Wochenende, National Geographic Deutschland, Facts, Bilanz and other magazines. Photo columns in Facts (1998), Weltwoche (2002), Das Magazin (2001–2003), Das Magazin (2016–2018), VIA (2004–2008), BREF-Magazin (2023–today).

Canton of Bern Recognition Award, 1989, 1994; Canton of Bern Werkbeitrag, 1991; UBS photography prize, 1991; Canton of Bern photography prize, 1996; Kodak portrait photographer, 1997; Swiss Press Photo Prize, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2014; Hansel Mieth Prize, 2002; Swiss Photo Award, 2017.