Peter Bialobrzeski

Nail Houses # 34, Shanghai 2013

C-print
Sheet size 23.00 x 30.60 cm
Image size 21.80 x 29.00 cm
Signed and numbered
Edition of 20 + 3 AP


Peter Bialobrzeski is one of the most notable German photographers wandering and describing the world with his camera since the late eighties. At the core of his much recognized work is a fascination for Asia’s megacities and the major transformations taking place on this continent. Situated between critical documentary and artistic statement, his photographs—from series such as Neon Tigers or Lost in Transition—“already count among the contemporary classics of the medium,” as described by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie in conjunction with the award of the Dr. Erich Salomon Award to Bialobrzeski in 2012.
For his most recent series Bialobrzeski once again traveled to the Far East to record the transition from the old to the new, this time by documenting so-called nail houses. In the Chinese vernacular “nail houses” are often decrepit buildings, which their owners refuse to vacate, despite the promise of luxury. Meanwhile, new buildings rise into the heavens around them. Even if people are seldom depicted in Bialobrzeski’s images, his photographs tell the story of their creative determination to fight for their home and the individual power of resistance. We are very pleased to be able to offer Nail Houses #34, another Edition Hatje Cantz by Peter Bialobrzeski.