Masks and Facades

Masken & Fassaden by German photographer Olaf Martens (1963) contain a variety of photographs made in the Russian city of St. Petersburg from 1996 till 2003. Exaggerated artificial and excitingly sexy, the pictures represent a symbiosis of exuberant lust for life. Martens has been focusing on St. Petersburg for some time now, continually seeking to discover new things, looking to change his perspectives on the city and its people. His subjects are mostly women, whether actresses, revue girls, ballet dancers or runway models. In a pictorial world where the female seems to be the centre of the universe, Martens portrays them as strong and bold but also as cheerful, provocative and arrogant. His females live in a world where illusion is preferred above reality.

In a theatre in which Martens is its own director, he undermines the ideals of Western capitalism and let the old socialist glory prevail. In backgrounds full of old houses, shabby elevators and ruined palaces, his women, whether skinny or fat, short or tall, seem to be in full harmony with one another. They look amazingly cheerful and show no hesitation in posing for the photographer.

Born and raised in the former GDR, Martens grew up having liberated ideas about sexuality. That's why his pictures are informal and show a relaxation. No pretension allowed, Martens arranges his pictures in a way which is surreal and humorous at the same time. His vision on life is a joyful one where it seems that he doesn't take things too seriously.

The power in the work of Olaf Martens is mostly that he keeps his images amaze and intrigue. They are an expression of as historian Quentin Bell calls it "a spiritual desire to colour our erotic needs." Martens removes with his work the feeling of déjà-vu which has been a part of overexpose of the medium photography and reminds us "again- that the camera can seduce us. Especially that female creature, which has been for centuries "like a magic spell- on the imagination of mankind.

About Olaf Martens

Olaf Martens was born in 1963 in Halle. He studied photography at the Leipzig Hochschule fur Graphik und Buchkunst. Since 1990 he has been freelancing as a photographer in the field of fashion/beauty, journalism and people for magazines like Stern, Der Spiegel, Geo, Frankfurter Allgemeine amongst others. Over the years he has been exhibiting in Bonn, Dresden, Berlin, Munich, Moskou, Rotterdam, Berlin and Lyon. Olaf Martens lives in Leipzig

Contact

Please contact the Cokkie Snoei Gallery in Rotterdam.
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