Photos by Henrik Malmström
Life is One Live it Well takes us back to the dodgy area of St. Georg in Hamburg and to many of its barrooms: Mickey Mouse, Windstärke 11, Zum Frühaufsteher, Rund um die Uhr, Moin Moin, Treff Hamburg-München, also the Vanessa Bar, Dschungel Bar, Rubin Bar, Moulin Rouge, Zar und Zimmermann and the Astra Stübchen. Now that the party is over, these bars have turned into mausoleums of the good old times and fading testimonies of a quartier that is frenetically changing under the effect of gentrification and the ban on street prostitution.
Henrik Malmström was curious to know what was actually happening inside these places. So, he started frequenting them. For four years, he befriended regulars, bartenders and clients. He became one of them. Then a sort of photo metamorphosis happened through the life in the bars of St. Georg. Like a cockroach, his camera, started crawling on the floor recreating what it feels like after a night of solitary rounds.
Balloons, velvet cushions, faded wallpaper and champagne – decayed fragments of the old fancy times, all shot with flashlight, all in close-up. They could perfectly be the snaps of a drunkard.
Kominek Books
Book: Hardcover with embossing / Edition of 375 / 255 color images / 256 pages + 1 loose paper /
21 x 31 cm / Photographed: 2011-14 / Published by: Kominek Books (June 2015)
