Masks & Faýades: Perspectives on St. Petersburg – Olaf Martens Photographs 1996-2003 / Masken & Fassaden: St. Petersburger Perspektiven – Olaf Martens Fotografien 1996-2003

The year 2003 saw the St Petersburg tricentenary and fascination with this city mounting worldwide to what must surely be only a preliminary to new heights. For several years now, St Petersburg has meant the centre of his heart’s desire to the Leipzig photographer – continually rejected, sought and found anew. This sumptuously illustrated book shows the intriguingly broad range developed by a perfectionist. Precisely constructed pictorial universes ironically question the assumptions of the brilliance and arrogantly staged illusions flaunted by a metropolis – defying all efforts to pigeonhole them as fashion, erotic or human-interest photography. ‘The aim is to realize a picture rather than produce a reproduction,’ as the art critic Klaus Honnef puts it in his text.