Morgan Is Sad Today is one of the most unconventional and unwieldy photo books in the history of Swiss photography. It was conceived in the late 1960s by the two young photographers Robert Müller (1942–2018) and Jean-Pierre Maurer (b. 1942) but left as a print-ready maquette for almost 50 years, until it was discovered by publisher Patrick Frey in 2015 and published in a practically unaltered form. It is a startlingly radical work. Wildly and exuberantly, it evokes the attitude to life held by young people who were convinced that they were on their way to a better and freer world. This sense of a new beginning was accompanied by frivolous dismantling of the establishment and passionate criticism of bourgeois conventions, as also reflected in this photography. The original photographs are now being exhibited at Fotostiftung Schweiz for the first time – a most astonishing rediscovery.

Müller and Maurer combined over 100 images in an associative sequence full of mysteries and ruptures, whereby it usually remains unclear who took the individual shots. To a certain extent, Morgan Is Sad Today is a collective product, into which raw material from other sources (press photos or comics, for example) was also incorporated. The visual sequences shift between staged presentation and reality, either remaining fragmentary or spilling out over the observer: a stream of consciousness, sometimes becoming more like a nouvelle vague film, before once again resembling a rock concert’s blaring live act. Time after time, the rules of ‘good’ photography are thrown overboard. Extreme contrasts, playful use of blur and coarse grain, bizarre and spontaneous happenings, carefully planned absurdities in the studio, and defamiliarisation beyond recognition are all included in the repertoire of an aesthetics of resistance that defies ‘reasonable’ logic. The two photographers were able to bring in well-known Italian designer Ettore Sottsass as the author of an accompanying essay; rather than provide any explanations of the pictures though, Sottsass described the zeitgeist of the 1960s as freely and extravagantly as the photographers – a manifesto against the hollow pathos and lies of politics, and a plea for a life in harmony with the universe. Sandro Fischli also contributed an enlightening text for the version printed in 2015.

With the title of their book, Maurer and Müller were referring to the film Morgan – A Suitable Case For Treatment. In this 1966 English film directed by Karel Reisz, the eccentric young painter Morgan tries using crazy ideas and his gorilla obsession to win back his wife, who has left him. The freedom of the outsider collides with the rigid conventions of the upper class; in the end, Morgan finds himself in a mental institution, where he unshakably continues to live out his dreams and Marxist ideals. Filmed in the crude style of the ‘free cinema’ movement, the comedy blurs the boundaries between reality and fantasy, as well as between seriousness and humour. At one point, the protagonist sings to himself: “Morgan is sad today, sadder than yesterday…” – Is he sad because his plan is unsuccessful? Or because humanity is still wrestling with the power of evil instead of finding happiness in a world full of love and peace?

“There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning,” wrote Hunter S. Thompson in his 1971 cult book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, referring to the youth of the 1960s. “We were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave…” – an apt image for the mood that Morgan Is Sad Today also conveys.

The works on display are part of a generous donation by Jean-Pierre Maurer; they were added to the Fotostiftung Schweiz collection in 2022.