Daniel Biskup. Photography

The exhibition introduces oeuvre of Daniel Biskup - one of the leading German photographers, who works in the genre of report and portrait photography. The exhibition includes works created in St. Petersburg in 1993-2003. The city is seen through the eyes of the photographer. It is many-sided and full of contrasts; it is the city of front facades and dark yards; the city of dwellers of communal flats and of "golden youth". The artist, as an independent observer, has caught such moments in the life of St. Petersburg that show contradictory relationship between the city and its citizens. Daniel Biskup was born in Bonn in 1962. In the age of 15 he takes up photography, history, and political science. Tireless traveller, a man with his camera, Daniel Biskup belongs to the tradition of Henri Cartier-Bresson. Since 1988 the artist has travelled across Russia a lot, many times visited St. Petersburg. Being a press photographer, Biskup records events in East Germany preceding the unification of Germany; works in the Soviet Union during the tragic events by the White House in 1993; records military actions in Yugoslavia in 1991-1999. However, it was portrait photographs that made him famous. Biskup leaves certain distance between those depicted and him, which contributes to the impression of their dignity. For a long period Daniel Biskup worked as a personal photographer of German ex-chancellor Helmut Kohl, accompanied him in his multiple foreign trips. Nowadays, Daniel Biskup collaborates with all the main German printed periodicals, such as Spiegel, Die Zeit, Freitag, TAZ, etc.