Jürgen Baldiga - Fotografien Within only 8 years, from 1995 until his death in 1993, Jürgen Baldiga
created an absolutely convincing and subjective mirror-image of his personal
world, which very impressively documents a time that has only recently
passed. The photographer, born in Essen, Germany in 1959, received public
attention during his lifetime with his publications: Bambule (1986),
Jünglinge (1987) Tunten Queens Tanten (1992) even though he was absolutely
independent from the gallery system. Only after his death was his work shown
in larger exhibitions in his town of choice: Berlin (a.o. Amsterdam, Paris,
Stuttgart). Because of his dominant personality, his publicity-arousing
appearance of openly being gay and HIV-positive after the outbreak of AIDS -
his black and white imagery world often was labeled with these same clichés.
Either being praised for portraiture full of pride showing the outcasts of
society or criticized as pure provocateur, Baldiga was perceived in different
contexts: either as AIDS photographer, social critic, gay artist or enfant
terrible. The exhibition in the Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin gives a broad
and general overview of his complete works and shows the very quality of his
photography that is only poorly characterized with the redundancy of the
usual clichés. Baldiga's absorbing art of portraying the absolutely unique
erotic and staged photos are not only showing a personal understanding, but
have to be taken seriously as an artistic concept. The exhibition in the
Kunstforum, Köln is set smaller due to the lack of space, but will in spite
prove that Jürgen Baldiga is a "classic" in the art of photography. The
interpreted provocation of Baldiga's photos is authentic, and the
authenticity can be seen through his stylization. The "objects" of Baldiga's
photos are the coincidences of his life - especially all the people who he
watched: those who attracted him and those who approached him. With a
changing intensity - they look into his camera and alike face the viewer. The
radical curiosity of this photographer is directed to the thrilling
self-staging of the models in front of his camera as well as between the
physical availability and the self-confidence of the subjects. Exemplary for
his personal take on photography are the "dirty pictures." Their very
physical expression is not directed by the photographer: they derive
sometimes from the intimacy between lovers, as one of them gets hold of a
camera in bed, or they document the way in which the models present
themselves. The photographic image is the result of a dialogue between equals
that allows irony as a means of expression as well. This is valid for all the
ones, in their portraits, who like Baldiga - were HIV positive or lived after
the outbreak of AIDS. The basis of the portraits is a "partner in crime"
based on mutual understanding, that has nothing to do with any intention of a
program alà "AIDS Has A Face". The protagonists, for example Ikarus, who
exposes himself with his Karposis and the number of his helper's t-cells,
have a personal message and Baldiga creates the canvas for that. The
exhibition shows thematic groups of his work that refer to his publications
(Bambule, Jünglinge, Tunten); another orientation are his sujés-like
portraits, self-portraits and scenic adaptations of paintings by Caravaggio.
Apart from being an approach to a summary of the body of work that he left,
the second part of the exhibition serves as a reconstruction of the very
unique forms of presentation which Baldiga himself developed - among others
the styling of portraits into personal "icons."
Edition Objektiv published a catalogue (192 pages, ca 210 b/wh photos) with
texts written by Chou-Chou de Briquette, Michael Bryntrup, Ines de Nil, Aron
Neubert, Thomas Michalak, Ursli Pfister, Melitta Poppe, Napoleon Seyfarth,
Ingo Taubhorn, Ruedi Weber, the additional journal
going along with the catalogue includes essays and texts written by
Ulmann-Matthias Hakert, Tom Kuppinger and Frank Wagner.
translation: sibyll kalff
"Fotographien" by Jürgen Baldiga ISBN 3-9804363-1-4
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