Anders Petersen

Whether they be conscious portraits of animals or a haphazard photographic encounter with a woman’s legs in python-print tights, Petersen draws out the animal and animalistic in all that he sees.

At a typical zoo we are the spectators, peering in on creatures as they go about their existence, mostly oblivious to our presence. But in Zoo, we find ourselves both behind and before the bars of the cage—with Petersen as the delighted zookeeper.

Since the 1960s, Anders Petersen (born 1944) has traveled extensively and photographed life beyond the margins of polite society for his acclaimed City Diaries. Petersen’s eye is an indiscriminate and intensely empathetic one, shaped by a fundamental connection with those he photographs—“To me, it’s all about people … what they do, what they believe, their dreams, hopes, visions and virtues.” His subjects, including sex workers, alcoholics and nighttime lovers, reveal his passion to identify and engage with subcultures and “life in the shadows,” not merely to document them. Presenting photos made between 1967 and 2019, City Diary #1–7 contains all books in the series to date: reprints of the first three—which received the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook of the Year Award in 2012—alongside four new volumes.

Swedish photographer Anders Petersen (born 1944) has spent four years (2015–2018) documenting the people and urban spaces of Stockholm. This volume gathers his energetic black-and-white images of a rapidly expanding city—of everyday life and celebration, of young and old, snow falling on Katarinavägen, a parade of dachshunds in Gärdet, an operating theatre in Danderyd, New Year's Eve celebrations at Skeppsbron's giant Christmas tree.

The book constitutes Petersen's first portrait of his native city; previously (and famously) he has photographed psychiatric hospitals, circuses, prisons, the city of Rome and the Café Lehmitz in Hamburg.

Anders Petersen is at his best when he freezes a low-key moment", Liljevalchs' director Mårten Castenfors writes in the book. "A snowy and desolate winter street, a glimpse of wonder. Images that reveal his incredible sensitivity—his presence and his love of what he sees, be it a person or an object that leads us to an unexpected association.