Photographer. Born in rural Germany, the son of a miner, the young Baldiga moved to Berlin in 1979. There, he undertook a number of odd jobs to support himself, including bartender, cook, and prostitute. By 1985, he had become known on the Berlin art scene as a self-taught photographer and as a popular figure in Berlin's gay social culture. He is known for his straight forward, black and white photography and photo portraiture. He often took as his subject matter the forgotten, the forbidden, the maligned, and the humorously irreverent. He photographed pimps and prostitutes, the homeless, drag queens, transvestites, the elderly, and victims of homophobia and AIDS, among other subjects. In 1984, he contracted HIV. Baldiga is also remembered for his appearance, shortly before his death of AIDS, in German filmmaker Michael Brynntrup's film short, the documentary Aide Memoire - ein schwules Gedachtnisprotkoll (Aide Memoir - A Gay Document for Remembering), released in 1995. Representative examples of Baldiga‚s work may be found in his books, Bambule: Photoportraits, Tunten/Queens/Tantes and Junglinge: Photographien.
Photographer. Born in rural Germany, the son of a miner, the young Baldiga moved to Berlin in 1979. There, he undertook a number of odd jobs to support himself, including bartender, cook, and prostitute. By 1985, he had become known on the Berlin art scene as a self-taught photographer and as a popular figure in Berlin's gay social culture. He is known for his straight forward, black and white photography and photo portraiture. He often took as his subject matter the forgotten, the forbidden, the maligned, and the humorously irreverent. He photographed pimps and prostitutes, the homeless, drag queens, transvestites, the elderly, and victims of homophobia and AIDS, among other subjects. In 1984, he contracted HIV. Baldiga is also remembered for his appearance, shortly before his death of AIDS, in German filmmaker Michael Brynntrup's film short, the documentary Aide Memoire - ein schwules Gedachtnisprotkoll (Aide Memoir - A Gay Document for Remembering), released in 1995. Representative examples of Baldiga‚s work may be found in his books, Bambule: Photoportraits, Tunten/Queens/Tantes and Junglinge: Photographien.
Bio by: Kathy Riley Williams
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