DUSTY KNUCKLES

Why Omaha? by Darius Koehli
Edition Patrick Frey
2022
Selected by TANK

In the summer of 1969, nine-year-old Darius Koehli left his hometown of Zurich to go on a nine-month sojourn with his father to Omaha, Nebraska. Reluctant to move (to Omaha “of all places!”), Koehli found an escape from his new unfamiliar world by taking pictures of wrestling matches at the – now demolished – local Civic Auditorium with his Kodak Instamatic camera. The hundreds of photographs he took depict the muscly contenders in all states both in and out of the ring, and often against a backdrop of rowdy cheering and booing fans. In the summer of 2019, Koehli rediscovered the photographs while on a trip to Zurich and compiled them into Why Omaha?, a unique look into a bygone era through a child’s eyes.