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