Masken & Fassaden. St. Petersburger Perspektiven. Olaf Martens Fotografien 1996-2003. / Masks & Faýades. Perspectives on St. Petersburg. Olaf Martens Photographs 1996-2003

The international public's fascination with St Petersburg seemingly attained its zenith in May 2003, when the city celebrated its tricentenary - but it is bound to reach new heights. The photographer Olaf Martens has focused on it for some years now - continually redesigning, seeking and inventing his perspective on it. Masks & Facades reveals this perfectionist's excitingly broad range. Precisely constructed pictorial universes which nonetheless ironically question the assumptions of the city with all its beauty, brilliance and arrogantly staged bid for metropolitan status - which would evade the grasp of the specialist limited to fashion, erotic or human-interest photography. 'To realize a picture rather than make a copy is the aim in this approach,' as Klaus Honnef, an art historian, puts it in his contribution to this book. The photographer has succeeded in 'even integrating the unforeseeable in his calculations'. In the pictorial universe that is Martens's St Petersburg everything is beautiful and picturesque in an artificial way. Viewers only notice that something isn't quite right after subjecting it to closer scrutiny.' Like the photographer who has found his inspiration in this magnificent metropolis, they are sure to succumb to the 'ceaseless oscillation between appearances and reality' representing a 'symbiosis of exuberant lust for life, exaggerated artificiality and whitewashed decay' that is St Petersburg.