About the Book
Schmidt allows us to browse his Facebook friends (organised alphabetically by first name) and his potential new Facebook friends (suggested by Facebook and organised by decreasing numbers of mutual friends) on a specific day, namely the 15th of December 2010. Together the books make up a snapshot of Schmidt’s social networking reality and his suggested dream-network of an ever increasing number of desirable friends, as seen through the eyes of Facebook. Once again Schmidt has used seemingly redundant information and has created poignant art books, in which not only a sociological survey of people’s choice of visuals for self-representation is preserved but, perhaps more importantly, a number of universal and existential questions are being raised. How many more friends will Andreas Schmidt have in one year? How many of the suggested friends will he add over the next four months? How many new Facebook users unknown to him will make contact to be his friend? Will you be in Schmidt’s next Facebookbook?
About the Creator
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Schmidt_(artist) "knowingly at the opposite end of attractive publishing" Elisabeth Tonnard / artist "a prolific self-publisher exploring the very nature of books and magazines" Christopher Clary / artist "It's such a bold yet brilliant idea" Mishka Henner / artist "What a laugh!" Martin Parr / photographer / curator / supreme book collector "I'm appalled that you did this" Judy Natal / photographer "One more time you do a very clever job" Rémi Coignet / Le Monde "Andreas Schmidt brilliantly debunks the notion that expensive equals quality" Jonathan Lewis / artist "Andreas Schmidt takes the concept of the book and shakes it like a rag doll...until its head comes off. He finds truth in extremes." Jean Keller / artist "Schmidt is a master of the unexpected twist" Hatje Cantz Publishers "a superb collaborative photobook work" Harvey Benge / photographer "I'll track down your books" Alec Soth / photographer "a pleasingly disruptive photobo