Karat (View)
Karat. Sky over St. Petersburg. In the years 2000 - 2002 I spent ten month in St. Petersburg to take pictures of children that were either homeless, or invloved in drug use or prostitution. �Sky over St. Petersburg�: Most of the stories are about playing on the roofs and attics in the 5th or 6th floor over the city. There - and at other places - those kids are finding own social spaces, where they can spend their nights, use drugs without stress, or earn money through prostitution. (An investigation ordered by the International Labour Organisation of the United Nations regarding children�s work found that about fifty percent of the street-children living in St. Petersburg are earning their money at least partially through prostitution.) "Karat" in this context is the name of a shoe-polish containing solvents that the kids are sniffing.
In those 10 months I accompanied eight different single persons or groups of youngsters, to be able to report about them as closely and as personal as possible. Whilst photographing this work, it was very important for me, not to show the kids as pure victims. Wherever possible I tried not to forget the moments of fun and happiness in their lives; to present them as what they are - just human beings!
The stories deal with the awareness of life of a young generation. And of course they are not only about sorrow and hopelessness. Still, visual habits get confused by observing stories about those kids and teenagers, which are being told quite natural and without the note of pity. And of course we are also surprised by being confronted in this context with pictures, which could as well be part of a fashion magazine. The radical changing of the last years also took place inside the heads of the young persons.
What was also quite important to me, was to tell those stories without exclamation-marks. The presented pictures have to leave enough space for the observers, to fill it with their own imaginations.
This work was put together into a photobook in November 2003 by Vice Versa, Berlin/ Germany, and by Nazraeli-Press, Portland/ USA in February 2004.
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View KaratAbout Wolfgang Mueller
I was born in 1958 in Regensburg/ Germany and entered photography as a "latecomer". After an intensive participation in social movements and work as a toolmaker in Frankfurt/ Main I was looking for an access to art through theater and painting. But finally - whilst travelling - I found my most intensive access to art through photography.
Since 1997 I studied photography at the University of Applied Sciences Dortmund in the class of Prof. Arno Fischer. I finished my studies in June 2002 with the photodesign-diploma.
After a lot of trips to the countries of the former Sovietunion they became the main point of my photographic work. After I had taken photos about homelessness in Odessa/ Ukraine in 1998 and especially after, as a part of that work, the chapter about the ten years old streetkid and pimp Sanya (have a look to excerpts: http://www.freelens.com/storystock/sanya), I decided to continue my work on that topic.
Wolfgang has had several solo and group exhibitions in France, Germany, England and Italy. He has also been published many times, and is a multiple award winner.