Amos Badertscher

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Amos Badertscher (born October 1936 in Baltimore ) is an American photographer . He is self-taught , photographed analogue and exclusively in black and white. He is considered a chronicler of the Baltimore subculture and hustler scene in the 1970s and '80s.

life and work

Badertscher attended the Friends School of Baltimore , a Quaker institution . After studying at Union College in Schenectady , NY between 1955 and 1959, Badertscher worked as a math teacher. It was a colleague who introduced him to photography. Since then Badertscher has dealt with the medium autodidactically. In 1975, a small inheritance enabled Badertscher to concentrate fully on photography.

Badertscher was interested in the gay subculture of Baltimore. Drag queens , hustlers , runaways and drug addicts are his models. Badertscher worked in silence for twenty years before he was discovered. He wanted to sell his house and one of the prospective buyers was the director of Duke University . He considered moving to Baltimore and saw Badertscher's photographs while visiting the house. Nothing came of the house purchase, but he organized an exhibition for Badertscher at the Duke University Museum of Art . A book later emerged from it; numerous exhibition participations followed.

Badertscher is now the chronicler of the Baltimore hustler's scene. Some of his images are sexually explicit without ever becoming pornographic. You can see the sympathy for the model in the works, but also wit and irony. Badertscher is a photographer and co-model in many of the pictures by taking pictures in a mirror. The handwritten biographical notes and comments on his tableaus identify Badertscher as a socially critical and compassionate photographer. His foreword to the book Baltimore Portraits is an indictment of social conditions in America and against moral concepts, which leads to the persecution and banning of the works of colleagues like Will McBride . He places himself in the ranks of those attacked with McBride, Sally Mann , Jock Sturges , Peter Hujar , Larry Clark and David Hamilton .

According to Gary Scharfman, Badertscher shoots quickly, unprepared and in series. He relies on his instinct for the right moment and the possibilities of the darkroom. His photos rarely have a background, they are concentrated and deliberately not anthropological. The models never become the object, rather the photo allows them to speak in the first person and that is exactly what makes his work ... gay. The aesthetics of his works, which were created in the seventies and eighties, point far ahead.

Amos Badertscher has been severely attacked by the religious right in the United States, especially by Pat Robertson and the Family Research Council , for his photographic work .

He has given up photography and dedicates himself to his collection of rare photography books. He lives in Baltimore.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

Holdings

Publications

  • Baltimore portraits . With an introduction by Tyler Curtain. Duke University Press, Durham / London 1999, ISBN 0-8223-2334-6
  • Badertscher . With an introduction by Gary Scharfman. Stonewall Inn St. Martin's Press, New York 1998, ISBN 0-312-18047-0

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Baltimore Portraits Duke University Museum of Art, Durham NC 1995
  2. ↑ Gary Scharfman foreword to: Badertscher , Stonewall Inn St. Martin's Press, New York 1998
  3. ^ Tyler Curtain: Photography, Sexuality, Community - A Baltimore Essay in: Baltimore Portraits Duke University Museum of Art, Durham NC 1995
  4. ↑ Sexwork. Art myth reality , artmap
personal data
SURNAME Badertscher, Amos
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American photographer
DATE OF BIRTH October 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Baltimore