Jacob Holdt

Jacob Holdt, 2009

Jacob Holdt (born April 29, 1947 in Copenhagen ) is a Danish photographer , writer and development worker.

life and work

Jacob Holdt is one of three sons of Pastor Jacob Holdt (1920-2000) and his wife Grete. He grew up in the Jutland parish of Fåborg near Esbjerg , where his father had been a vicar since 1950 . At the invitation of the Canadian farming family Godfrey, Holdt went to Canada in 1970 . After a year he traveled to the United States and hitchhiked and explored the country as a bon vivant. Originally he was passing through to Chile , where he wanted to join the democratic revolution of Salvador Allende . However, Holdt stayed in the United States and became increasingly interested in the Afro-American residents living in ghettos and their living conditions. He captured these and other impressions with the Canon Dial 35-2 half-format camera during his five-year journey . During this time he was arrested several times, the victim of armed robbery and fights.

Back in Europe, Holdt published some of his 15,000 photos in 1977 in the book Amerikanske Billeder (German: Amerikabilder 1970–1975. A journey through black America ) to show racism, exploitation and poverty. 10,000 copies were sold after just two weeks. In 1978, Der Spiegel published a three-part series of excerpts from its illustrated book entitled Pilgrimage to the Disenfranchised . Around 80,000 books were sold in Denmark. In the Federal Republic of Germany came in 1978 when Fischer Verlag S. with American Pictures - Images from America a German translation in 1980 was followed in the East of the publishing house people and world- titled American images . His photo series inspired the Danish film director Lars von Trier to make the films Manderlay and Dogville . Holdt has been working as a volunteer for CARE in third world countries since 1991 .

Holdt is married to Vibeke Rostrup Bøyesen and has two grown children with her.

Exhibitions

In 2007, 200 of his USA photos were shown again in an exhibition at the Museum Folkwang in Essen . The exhibition then went to Prague , Luxembourg and Chalon sur Saône .

literature

• Jacob Holdt: United States 1970-1975. Steidl Verlag , Göttingen 2007, 191 pages, 85 color illustrations, format: 21 × 25 cm, ISBN 978-3-86521-431-7 , (exhibition catalog).
• Jacob Holdt: American Pictures. Pictures from America. Personal experiences in America's lower classes 1970-1975, S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1984, ISBN 3-10-034102-3

Web links

Commons : Jacob Holdt  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Jacob Holdt in the catalog of the German National Library
• Jacob Holdt in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Official site of Jacob Holdt (English, Danish); CV (English)
• Outcry Against Injustice , Die Welt , April 3, 2007
• “Hippie vagabond with the camera” ( memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), ttt - title, theses, temperaments , April 22, 2007
• “United Nightmares of America” , one day , February 1, 2010, with photo series from Holdts trip to America

Individual evidence

1. ^ Jacob Holdt - my family roots.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Jacob Holdt , accessed December 3, 2010.
3. ↑ Pilgrimage to the disenfranchised . In: Der Spiegel . No. 10 , 1978 ( online ). J. Holdt: At night when the rats come (I). Experiences in poor America . In: Der Spiegel . No.
    10 , 1978 ( online - book excerpt). J. Holdt: Part II. Experiences in Poor America . In: Der Spiegel . No.
    11 , 1978 ( online ). J. Holdt: Part III. Experiences in poor America . In: Der Spiegel . No.
    12 , 1978 ( online ).
4. ^ Jacob Holdt - my family.