Peter Bialobrzeski (born in 1961 in Germany) first studied Politics and Social Sciences before he became the official photographer of a local newspaper in his hometown in Wolfsbourg. He worked there during fifteen years, while travelling throughout Asia. Afterwards he decided to dedicate his career to his personal photography, which he describes cultural rather than documentary or artistic.
For his series The Raw and the Cooked (2011) Peter Bialobrzeski travelled across fourteen Asian countries, including China. His photographs portray the Asian metropolis’ sublimity and contradictions, its magnificence, its ugliness, its rapid urban changes, its unsettling insalubrity, its dense population, its luminous pollution, its incredible contrasts. The photographer invites us in a world close to René Magritte's (1898-1967) surrealist paintings: his long exposure time blurs the boundaries between day and night. In such a spatiotemporal blurring, these cityscapes become atemporal and global while maintaining some characteristics of Asian cities. By representing both old buildings falling into ruins and brand new skyscrapers, Peter Bialobrzeski seems to mingle dystopian visions and panegyric on Asian urbanism.
, variable sizes © Peter Bialobrzeski. Courtesy of m97 Gallery | Shanghai.jpg "Enlarge The Raw and The Cooked #114, Shanghai (2010), variable sizes © Peter Bialobrzeski. Courtesy of m97 Gallery | Shanghai.jpg")
, variable sizes © Peter Bialobrzeski. Courtesy of m97 Gallery | Shanghai.jpg "Enlarge The Raw and The Cooked #75, Shanghai (2010), variable sizes © Peter Bialobrzeski. Courtesy of m97 Gallery | Shanghai.jpg")
, variable sizes © Peter Bialobrzeski. Courtesy of m97 Gallery | Shanghai_MODIF.jpg "Enlarge The Raw and The Cooked, Hong Kong (2009), variable sizes © Peter Bialobrzeski. Courtesy of m97 Gallery | Shanghai_MODIF.jpg")
, variable sizes © Peter Bialobrzeski. Courtesy of m97 Gallery | Shanghai._MODIF.jpg "Enlarge The Raw and The Cooked, Shanghai (2010), variable sizes © Peter Bialobrzeski. Courtesy of m97 Gallery | Shanghai._MODIF.jpg")
, variable sizes © Peter Bialobrzeski. Courtesy of m97 Gallery | Shanghai...jpg "Enlarge The Raw and The Cooked, Shanghai (2010), variable sizes © Peter Bialobrzeski. Courtesy of m97 Gallery | Shanghai...jpg")
, variable sizes © Peter Bialobrzeski. Courtesy of m97 Gallery | Shanghai..jpg.jpg "Enlarge The Raw and The Cooked, Shanghai (2010), variable sizes © Peter Bialobrzeski. Courtesy of m97 Gallery | Shanghai..jpg.jpg")
, variable sizes © Peter Bialobrzeski. Courtesy of m97 Gallery | Shanghai.jpg "Enlarge The Raw and The Cooked, Shanghai (2010), variable sizes © Peter Bialobrzeski. Courtesy of m97 Gallery | Shanghai.jpg")
, variable sizes © Peter Bialobrzeski. Courtesy of m97 Gallery | Shanghai.MODIF.jpg "Enlarge The Raw and The Cooked, Shanghai (2010), variable sizes © Peter Bialobrzeski. Courtesy of m97 Gallery | Shanghai.MODIF.jpg")
, variable sizes © Peter Bialobrzeski. Courtesy of m97 Gallery | Shanghai…_MODIF.jpg "Enlarge The Raw and The Cooked, Shenzhen (2009), variable sizes © Peter Bialobrzeski. Courtesy of m97 Gallery | Shanghai…_MODIF.jpg")