Kodak City

Eastman Kodak, the company which pioneered so much in photography from the 1880s through the 1960s, could have owned digital imaging; the very first electronic camera was born in one of Kodak’s labs. Instead, they missed that boat, going into a tailspin that resulted in their eventual bankruptcy. Tied to that economic engine, the fortunes of Rochester, New York, the archetypal company town where Kodak had its headquarters, fell as ＂Big Yellow＂ collapsed.

Catherine Leutenegger’s attentive, deadpan studies of Rochester today explore the face of a city once central to photography but now irrelevant and adrift.

Catherine Leutenegger’s (b.1983) photographs have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions on the international scene: Aperture Gallery, New York; Museum fur Gestaltung, Zurich; Museum Bellerive, Zurich; Bieler Fototage, Biel; Fotomuseum, Winterthur; F/Stop.
She is the recipient of several major fellowships including two Swiss Federal Design Grants (2006 and 2008); the Raymond Weil International Photography Prize (2008) and the BCV Encouragement Prize (2006). In 2007 she took part of an artist residency program in New York and started her project named Kodak City in Rochester.

A. D. Coleman is a prolific writer of photography history and criticism who has published widely since the 1960s. Coleman was the first photo critic for the New York Times, authoring 120 articles during his tenure. He started writing in 1967 and has contributed to the Village Voice, New York Observer and numerous magazines, artist monographs and other publications worldwide. Born in 1943, he is based in New York City.

Urs Stahel was the Director of the Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland, 1993 - 2013. He is the curator, editor and author of numerous exhibitions and publications.

Joerg Bader is Director of Centre de la Photographie de Geneva, Switzerland .