Dr.-Erich-Salomon-Award 2008 : Anders Petersen & Café Lehmitz exhibition in Berlin

On 20 January 2009, Swedish documentary photographer Anders Petersen was awarded the Dr.-Erich-Salomon-Award by the “Deutschen Gesellschaft für Photographie” (German Society of Photography) in the Berlin-based Northern embassies. His work is signified by an intense candidness.
 
He became famous in 1978 upon release of his photo book  “Café Lehmitz”, the pictorial portrait of a pub at the far end of Hamburg's infamous Reeperbahn red-light district. The Lehmitz was the gathering point and sometimes the last stop for prostitutes, panderers, transvestites and small time crooks. To mark the award, the “Café Lehmitz” exhibition will be inaugurated, and visited up until the 1st of March, in the Northern embassies in Berlin.
 
Influenced by the photographs of artists such as Robert Frank and Brassaï, Anders Petersen developed his very own visual language over the course of more than 21 book publications. They document outlaws and humans teetering on the brink of society, whom he joins in the exploration of humankind's concealed aspects.
 
Petersen was born on 3 May 1944 in Solna (Sweden). In 1966, he attended Christer Strömholm's famous school for photography, the founder of modern Swedish photography. Thither he returned as a teaching body later on. He answered Hamburg's call in 1967, the year the “Café Lehmitz” pictures were taken, which you will find attached. As of today, Petersen lives and works in Stockholm.
 
“Café Lehmitz“ was published by the Schirmer and Mosel Verlag in 1978, with a new edition that followed in 2004 (ISBN-10 3829600720).