A photographic account of an Alpine town’s extreme servitude to the World Economic Forum. Every January, for four days, a small town in the Swiss Alps is transformed into a Potemkin village. The World Economic Forum brings heads of state, politicians and activists to Davos, followed by global corporations who use the venue for international appearances, informal receptions and lobbying. The short-term demand for free, playable rooms, space and accommodation has far-reaching consequences: shops and apartments are vacant for most of the year in order to be rented out for horrendous sums during the event. In 2020, Facebook erected a temporary two-story pavilion, while at the same time a bookstore disappeared completely from the main street. Davos Is a Verb is the photographic documentation of this madness. Photographer Jules Spinatsch (born 1964) makes Davos visible as a fleeting world in which public space is reinterpreted and everything is in flux. AUTHOR: Jules Spinatsch (born 1964 in Davos) briefl y studied sociology in Zurich, then photography at the International Center of Photography ICP in New York. Since 2000, he has been working mainly on his own projects, which are published as monographs and shown as exhibitions, e.g. at the MoMA (NY) and the Tate Modern. In 2019 the comprehensive publication of the solo exhibition Semiautomatic Photography 2001 2020 at the Centre de la Photographie Geneve was published. Temporary Discomfort won the prize for the best photography book in Arles in 2005. SELLING POINT: . Mind-blowing photos show how a tiny Swiss mountain town completely transforms itself into a showroom for capitalism over the four days of the World Economic Forum. Hundred-years-old shops transform into LED advertisements for corporations, earning a years worth of income in just days. These photographs show the rapid transformation and impact of this global descent on the town of Davos. 190 images
