Jacob Holdt
Jacob Holdt ( born April 29, 1947 in Copenhagen ) is a Danish photographer, writer and development worker.
Life and work
Jacob Holdt is one of three sons of Pastor Jacob Holdt (1920-2000) and his wife Grete. He grew up in the Jutland community Faaborg on in Esbjerg, where his father worked as a vicar since 1950. At the invitation of the Canadian farm family Godfrey Holdt went to Canada in 1970. After a year he traveled to the United States and explored hitchhiking and as the art of living the land. Originally he was on his way to Chile, where he wanted to join the democratic revolution of Salvador Allende. However Holdt stayed in the U.S. and became increasingly interested in living in the ghetto African-American population and their living conditions. These and other impressions he held during his five-year wanderings fixed to the half-frame camera Canon Dial 35-2. During this time he was arrested several times, victims of armed robbery cases and brawls.
Back in Europe Holdt published some of his approximately 15,000 photos in the book Amerikanske Bill Eder (German: . U.S. images from 1970 to 1975 A journey through black America ) in order to overcome social ills such as racism, exploitation and poverty. The book, published in 1977, caused a sensation because it showed the misery in the American ghettos in images that were hitherto never been presented to a large public. Already after two weeks 10,000 copies of his book were sold, particularly in the U.S. and Germany his work was in great demand. The Mirror published in 1978 under the title pilgrimage to the voiceless, a three-part series of excerpts of his pictorial book. While in Denmark, 80,000 books were sold, it reached a circulation of 3.5 million copies in the United States. In 1978, the German translation: Pictures from America - Images from the Americas in S. Fischer and the DDR -Verlag Volk und Welt, 1980.
"Hunger also drives many to eat earth. Throughout Alabama, Mississippi, and North Carolina many black women often eat up to 50 percent - clay. This apathetic and exhausted by anemia woman led me to the hillside to look out for » Food« grub usually she shared with her son. " Do you eat earth ?" " Sometimes ..." " Tastes they good? " "Yes. " ( Surprised ) "Have you ever eaten one? " [ ... ] "He who eats here else earth ?" " My mother and my aunt because above in the white house. I think all. " "
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His photo series inspired the Danish film director Lars von Trier Manderlay and Dogville to the movies. Since 1991, Holdt worked as a volunteer for CARE in the Third World countries.
Holdt is married with Vibeke Rostrup Bøyesen and has with her two adult children.
Exhibitions
In an exhibition in Essen Folkwang Museum in the year 2007 200 his U.S. recordings were shown again. The exhibition then traveled to Prague, Luxembourg and Chalon sur Saône.