Anders Petersen: Rome by Delogu, Marco(October 31, 2014) Paperback

by Anders Petersen

Anders Petersen (born 1944) has been photographing the city of Rome since the mid-1980s. He has returned numerous times, and in 2005 he was invited for the Rome Commission, a prestigious commission that has previously been awarded to leading photographers such as Josef Koudelka, Graciela Iturbide, Alec Soth and many others. He returned in 2012, and decided to photograph his lover, Julia, who was briefly visiting him there. "Rome" begins with Petersen's portraits of Julia, which develop into a broader investigation of the city's lesser-known monuments and byways, its cars, bars and citizens, as Petersen revisits the locations he had documented seven years previously, acutely conscious of his own mortality. These photographs, mostly taken over the course of one week with a small, unobtrusive camera, constitute a fascinating culmination in Petersen's love affair with Rome.

Unknown Binding

First published January 31, 2014

Reviews

[Philippe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably the best book by Anders in my library.
It drew the following lines from me:

From within the walls
Of the Eternal City
His work offers a window
Into a confused, shabby century.
Infernal machines unceremoniously
Burrow their way beneath
Crumbling porticos and pediments.
Paratroopers loiter wearily
In ghoulish shopping arcades.
Flows of detritus link
Mouths to plates to bins to
Teetering mounds of rubbish
In hazy stretches of suburbia.

There are glimmerings, too,
In the furrows of this black-and-white,
Hysterically high-contrast universe.
Womens' freckled bodies glow
Like plated armour under neon light.
A random pack of black cats
Is found napping in a sunny meadow.
Pictures in pictures. Trophies from a boxing past.
Healing is a miracle!
Life knits patterns like a granny
Snuggled in her rocking chair.
The photographer opens the hand,

Pushes the button.