Marcelo von Schwartz
Artist / Photographer / Filmmaker
Marcelo von Schwartz is an interdisciplinary artist whose work moves across photography, film, and spatial perception. Trained as an architect, he develops visual languages that explore the relationship between space, movement, and human experience, often bringing together architecture, time, memory, and atmosphere.
His photographic practice examines how urban and natural environments are filtered through subjective perception. Through long exposure, layered imagery, and spatial distortion, his works transform familiar settings into perceptual landscapes suspended between reality and imagination, where emotional resonance and altered states of perception subtly reshape what is seen.
Alongside his photographic work, von Schwartz has developed experimental film and audiovisual projects at the intersection of cinema, sound and neuroscience. His feature film Dark Bridge (2014), shot in Bangkok, incorporated binaural brain frequencies into its soundtrack to create immersive perceptual environments.
His work has been exhibited internationally in Tokyo, Fukushima, Bangkok, Vienna, Venice, Miami, New York, Barcelona, and Seoul, among other cities. In 2021, he presented the immersive exhibition Tokyo Still Motion, developed in collaboration with Japanese sound artist Tomoo Nagai and shown at Tennoz Isle in Tokyo and Nishiaizu International Art Village in Fukushima.
His recent work has expanded toward projects that explore the relationship between landscape, perception and natural elements, including the ongoing photographic research project SUIJIN, centred on the presence of water in the Japanese cultural landscape.
Education
Architecture
University of Buenos Aires
Filmmaking studies with Argentine filmmaker David José Kohn
Selected Exhibitions / Projects
2026 — LUST, photographic exhibition, ILFORD Gallery, Bangkok (forthcoming)
2026 — ALIRA, art / technology public sculpture project exploring atmospheric water generation (in development)
2023 — Polopos: People and Places, House 3 Gallery, Granada, Spain
2022 — Meet me at the Horizon, 333 Gallery, Bangkok
2022 — Die Lange Nacht der Forschung, AR exhibition, Desiderio Gallery, Vienna
2022 — Tokyo Still Motion (with Tomoo Nagai), Nishiaizu International Art Village, Fukushima, Japan
2021 — Tokyo Still Motion (with Tomoo Nagai), Tennoz Isle Central Tower, Tokyo
2021 — Breathe, Desiderio Gallery, Vienna
2020–2021 — Bangkok Dreamscapes, River City Bangkok
2019 — Metropolis, The Bangkok Club, Bangkok
2018 — Art Takes SoHo, The Untitled Space, New York
2018 — SPACES, Architecture Biennale, Palazzo Ca’ Zanardi, Venice
2018 — Bangkok Dreams, Solo Exhibition, Continent Hotel Bangkok
2017 — ESCAPE, Solo Exhibition, RMA Institute, Bangkok
2017 — Tokyo International Art Fair
2011 — Dark Bridge (Feature Film), Premiere at Bucheon Fantastic Film Festival, Seoul
2007 — [H]opening / Trayectos Extremos, Nau Ivanow, Barcelona
2006 — [H]opening, ARCO Madrid
2005 — Trayectos Extremos, Miami Art Fair
2004 — Imaginary Landscapes, Segovia-Isaacs Gallery, Barcelona
2003 — New Figuration, Segovia-Isaacs Gallery, Barcelona
Film Projects
2026 — Fallen Angel (film project, in development)
2014 — Dark Bridge — feature film, Bangkok
2001 — Gaudi Moving [Video Art], Casa Mila, Fundacio Caixa de Catalunya, Barcelona
1998 — Phoenix — experimental short film, premiered at the 60th Brno Film Festival
Photobooks
2021 — Tokyo Still Motion (with Tomoo Nagai) — album + photobook, Japan
2019 — Two Realities Photobook (curator)
2012 — Dark Cabaret
Statements by Gala Hartmann