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reading the news

2025/26

3h35min, Loop

HD-Video, 16:9, Sound
vimeo.com/1086342881

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„Raphael Reichert’s reading the news addresses the incessant flow of information that is consumed rapidly yet seldom retained. By recording himself reading local digital news – accelerated and monotonous in delivery – the artist foregrounds the tension between the civic imperative of being informed and the affective fatigue engendered by incessant negative reporting.“ 

– Pavel Kovalenko, 2025​​​​

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decisions

since 2026

1h40min and ongoing, Loop

HD-Video, 9:16, Sound

work in progress: vimeo.com/1181124735

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decisions is comprised – at the time of the publishing of this text – of roughly 90 sequences, each exactly 1 minute long. Each of the shots was initially published on the artist’s Instagram stories and strongly refers to contemporary publishing and distribution methods on (social) media. Recurring motifs of these mostly very static shots are a focus on methods of transport and urban fauna, as well as residues and proofs of human presence, while trying to refrain from focusing too much on individuals. They convey various degrees of movement and action within the selected framing, from almost freeze-frame shots to busy street scenes. All of the sequences were shot during his recent travels in Argentina and Armenia, as well as in his home country, Switzerland. Even though the individual length of each sequence is only 1 minute, they are – in the context of “hyper-fast-pacedness” on social media platforms – challenging the (younger, or more influenced by contemporary media) viewer’s attention span, especially when they were shown on the platform they were initially published on.​​​​

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piss paintings

since 2025

C-Print on Enhanced Matte Paper, Framed
ongoing Series, each 20 × 15 cm
Ed. of 5 + 1 AP

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„What are some things we deliberately look away from in our daily lives? Why do we feel a certain need to avoid? The photographic series piss paintings confronts the viewers with marks that are abject and anonymous from their fixed ground where gestures disappear as quickly as they appear. It operates as a mirror on the accelerated cycles of (non)visibility that the contemporary art institutions tend to create. Like the trends that surge and vanish almost instantly, the piss stains in their neat little frames (...) document a form of expression stripped of permanence, while searching for institutional validation (or the lack thereof). Raphael thus addresses the growing pressure placed upon artists to adapt, guess, mimic, and reproduce marketable tendencies in order to remain legible within institutions.“     

– Cemre Nomer, 2026

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topes

2024

60', Loop

2-Channel HD-Video, 2x 16:9, Sound

vimeo.com/906453962

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„Rhythmed by the altar of the former synagogue, the diptych topes (manejar/patinar) [speed bump (drive/skate)] is the result of Reichert’s contemplation of an avenue in Oaxaca district. Freed from the constraints of the medium by using a tripod on which he fixed his lens, the artist let his gaze drift with the flow of traffic. In the center, a speed bump divides the passage of vehicles and, occasionally, dogs. As night falls, a group of rollerbladers defy gravity, gliding along at a liberating speed. At the opposite end of the spectrum from traffic, the skatepark ramp embodies the promise of a new acceleration. Obstructed or fluid, these different forms of circulation pose the same question: what force drives these beings to move from one point to another?“     

– Maria Claudia Gamboa, 2025

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firulais

2024

19’55“, Loop

HD-Video, 16:9, Sound

vimeo.com/907883039

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„In firulais, the camera takes on a performative role, engaging directly with stray dogs across the urban landscape of Oaxaca de Juárez. Rather than documenting from a distance, it responds to the animals’ movements and presence, creating an improvised choreography of attention. The work explores interspecies interaction, urban marginality, and the camera’s potential to act – not just observe – in moments of encounter.“     

– Ileana Ramirez Romero, 2025

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[stillness]

2023

6’00“, Loop

HD-Video, 16:9, No Sound

vimeo.com/890793075?fl=pl&fe=sh

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[stillness] consists of a juxtaposed montage of 12 daytime and 12 night-time shots of urban trees, filmed from a low-angle perspective. The individual sequences were shot in several cities, primarily in Basel and New York. The footage features trees native to the respective regions as well as a few non-native species. In the video, these trees appear uprooted from their context: neither buildings nor any other visual references to their urban surroundings are shown. Only the (sporadically changing) play of light in the night-time shots hints at a human presence. The montage is complemented by closed-caption subtitles, which were collected whilst watching several hours of nature documentaries. In these snippets, which originally serve to convey the audio track to deaf people as faithfully as possible, various natural phenomena are described: from a violent storm, through time-lapse footage of a growing bud, to the calm after the storm. [stillness] is a commentary on the anthropocentric tendency of humans to apply self-invented and self-descriptive categories to other living beings, both plant and animal, as well as to natural phenomena – in this case, the categories of ‘good’ and ‘evil’.

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​hail damage

2023

Water Jet Cut and Powder-Coated Aluminium
42 Parts, Dimensions Variable

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Holes that big hailstones ripped into a plexiglass roof in the garden of the artist‘s former home were photographed, vectorized, enlarged and translated into aluminium shapes, before being powder coated in white. 
hail damage is the materialized documentation of a weather phenomenon that can‘t clearly be attributed to climate change (yet), but that will become more frequent in the near future.​​

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i will always love you

2023

77', Loop

HD-Video,16:9, Sound

vimeo.com/863676251/1c6e71782a

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i will always love you is a montage of clips of physiotherapy sessions, filmed by the artist‘s physiotherapist over the course of a year. Recorded with a body cam around his neck, the footage invites the specators to dive into a very intimate, but also playful process of various forms of healing. The video material and its mumbled original audio is overlayed with chansons about friendship and love that the therapist used to sing during his first career as a musical performer.​​

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bitte warten

2023

Collaboration with Leah Studinger

30', Loop

2-Channel HD-Video, 2x 9:16, No Sound

vimeo.com/811740915

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„They are waiting. For what? At least for the time to pass. bitte warten is a two-channel video work in which Leah Studinger and Raphael Reichert simply wait. The camera registers their presence without commentary, without narrative, without sound. Thirty minutes on a loop. The question of what they are waiting for remains deliberately open, and in that openness it turns back on the viewer: what are you waiting for? The German sociologist Andreas Göttlich describes waiting as an axiologically neutral experience, one that receives its value only through the emotional charge of the person waiting. There is no bad or good waiting in itself. There is only a state of suspension and what we bring into it. The widespread thesis that modern people have forgotten how to wait is, according to Göttlich, an ethnocentric and Westernist assumption. Waiting has not disappeared. It has only changed its form and context.“   

– CienCień, 2026

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my dog would take the bus

2023

16‘55“, 20‘04“, 23‘32“, 34‘53“, Loop

4-channel HD-Video, 4x 9:16, Sound

Channel 1: vimeo.com/824833887

Channel 2: vimeo.com/823516582

Channel 3: vimeo.com/823458348

Channel 4: vimeo.com/823139566

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my dog would take the bus is a 4-channel video installation about the connections between animals and (public) transport. One of the four channels is a montage of cell phone footage of all the animals (both domesticated and wild) that could be found in the vicinity of a disused train station in northern Germany, as well as various means of transportation - first and foremost the omnipresent express and freight trains. This montage leans heavily on the aesthetics of „Instagram stories“. The other channels tell the stories of three people living at the disused station in the form of interviews, who have the most varied relationships with animals - from the vegan chicken farmer to the 84-year-old furrier who processed baby seal fur until just a few decades ago.

 

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otopexie

2022

Collaboration with Leah Studinger

15‘31“, Loop, 2K-Video, 16:9, Sound

vimeo.com/725314915

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The single-channel work otopexie was created as a reaction to a failed ear surgery. As an attempt to fix the error, several substitutions were tested. This fictional short documentary shows the individual steps of an ear correction. The process of the procedure leaves the viewer with a slightly oppressive feeling, but at the same time awakens a sense of defensiveness, driven by questions of why. The sterile, clearly structured video aesthetics and the sober presentation of the medical steps unearth an increasingly rampant awareness of the enormous complexity of social structures and their negative effects.

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pasta 1–4 (hommage to my father)

2022

Pictures shot and edited by Leah Studinger   

C-Print on Aluminium

60 × 80 cm

Ed. of 5 + 1AP

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„In this work, Reichert examines the theme of food through an autobiographical lens. Memories of meals and the rituals associated with them are essential – they accompany us day after day for years on end, shaping us and our culture, often unconsciously. Many of our habits, some of which have developed over time, are so deeply ingrained that their traces are still visible in our eating and consumption habits generations later. Sometimes it takes art to become aware of these influences and to break free from them. The four different types of pasta were photographed in a neutral white recessed frame, giving the images a matter-of-fact, almost advertising-like aesthetic. The shallow depth of field is reminiscent of classic product photography created for advertising purposes – still untouched by text or graphic elements. The series is not only a tribute to the culinary tradition of the cultural region north of Italy, but also evokes nostalgic memories of a childhood spent in Germany’s second postwar generation.“     

– Dr. Isabel Balzer​​​​​​

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1000 push-ups

2022

24‘24“, Loop, HD-Video, 16:9, No Sound

vimeo.com/722968995

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1000 push-ups consists of smartphone recordings of a thousand push-ups. Although not in a row, they were done over a short period of time. This work is reflecting the absurdities of contemporary masculinity in the context of social media fitness challenges.

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Ø15:09

2021   

15‘09“, Loop, HD-Video, 16:9, Sound

vimeo.com/544562708

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Ø15:09 consists of video recordings made during morning jogging sessions, filmed from the perspective that the smartphone assumes by itself when you hold it in your hand while jogging. The work is a meditation about the extent to which the imperative of complete self-optimization in all areas of social life is also applicable for artistic production.

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don‘t look into the sun

2020

12‘10“, Loop, HD-Video, 9:16, Sound

vimeo.com/431296906

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don‘t look into the sun consists of an interview with Indian-born actress and trans gender activist Living Smile Vidya, who is currently in the asylum process. This interview is combined with more than a hundred recordings of the sun, filmed with a smartphone over the time span of several weeks during the first Corona lockdown.

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globetrotter

2018

6‘37“, Loop, HD-Video, 16:9, Sound

vimeo.com/314221719

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globetrotter links the lives of two people by documentary means; the soundtrack consists of an interview with a Gambian refugee about his every day life in his old as well as in his new home. This is put in contrast with recordings from the artist's own video diary, filmed during a summer break, which could only be created through the freedoms he enjoys as a Swiss citizen.

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wind power is petting with the atmosphere

2019

26‘29“, Loop, HD-Video, 16:9, 4-Channel Sound

vimeo.com/380246337

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This video montage is a reference to the column „Windkraft ist Petting mit der Atmosphäre“ by Mely Kiyak from the German newspaper DIE ZEIT from the 27th of November 2019.

The work accepts Kiyak‘s ironic challenge to bestow something poetic on wind turbines with the help of Vivaldi‘s „Four Seasons“, in order to make wind turbines more popular with the countryside population. The soundtrack is complemented by the individual words of Mely Kiyak‘s column, arranged in alphabetical order, previously translated into English. The two sound loops thus create a shift, creating several combinations of image and sound.

In the exhibition setting, Vivaldi‘s „Winter, I. Allegro non molto“ can be heard from the front and the speaking voice from the back.

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on saving us

2019

3‘11“, Loop, HD-Video, 16:9, Sound

vimeo.com/348030194

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On saving us compares the possibility of accident-free driving with the possibility of error-free stabilization of video footage. Autonomous driving promises us accident-free traffic. But as long as the human factor still plays a role, problems of a utilitarian nature arise: Who will the algorithm run over, the elderly person or the playing child running carelessly across the street?

The human factor also plays a role in the stabilization of videos. Which technical means were used to take the shots, how calm does the hand remain when filming? The shots taken with the smartphone from the back seat of an electric vehicle direct the focus to the human factor, the steering hands.

The work examines what is tenable about the general view, that technology has the potential to solve problems in all parts of society.

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© 2026 RAPHAEL REICHERT. All rights reserved.

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