Transformation does not mean chaos. There is a main theme running throughout Petersen’s work, and whether it’s plain to see, or whether it goes under and reappears like the flow of a river, this moment—when people come together, when their gaze meet the photographers’—was already present in his earliest photographs taken at the Café Lehmitz in Hamburg. The gaze of the other, and our own, disappear as soon as we see it. Encountering the other in Petersen’s photographs is to not only capture their gaze, but to make it visible. Soho, Hamburg, Rome—decades separate these portraits. But no single moment is without the right approach, and the perfect gaze at the other and, accordingly, at oneself. “A portrait is when you can say, ‘That’s not just him. That’s also me.”
Anne Biroleau
BOOK
Anders Petersen (par) Christian Caujolle
Collection Juste entre nous
André Frère Éditions
2013
EXHIBITION
Anders Petersen [photographies]
November 13th 2013 – February 2nd 2014
BNF Site Richelieu
5, rue Vivienne
75002 Paris
France
http://www.bnf.fr/fr/evenements_et_culture/anx_expositions/f.anders_petersen.html
Anders Petersen, To Belong
November 8th – January 11th, 2014
Galerie VU’
58 Rue Saint-Lazare
75009 Paris
France
http://www.galerievu.com
