Jürgen Baldiga (1959-1993)

(this text can also be heard in the audio clip)

Baldiga grew up as a miner’s son in Essen and moved to West Berlin in 1979 at the age of 19, where he initially earned his living as a cook and hustler. However, he soon discovered his calling: art and, in particular, photography as a chronicler of the Berlin gay scene. He lived an unreservedly sex-positive life before the term existed, was full of energy and a stage hog. “I want to live. Enjoy every day. It’s fun, it makes horny, it’s the freedom of sexuality”. In his diary he noted “Art and fucking – that’s my life. I love my life. It’s like a trip. An eternal one.”

His art was radical and his photographs show an unembellished, authentic image of the queer underground, full of honesty with himself and others. With his camera, he captured moments that others often overlooked: wild parties, intimate encounters, but also the darker side of life on the edges of society.

At first he was reserved and only photographed feet because he did not dare to meet people more intimately. But then he began talking to people on the street. Junkies, hustlers, people with disabilities, drag queens. He chatted them up and met them all at eye level, portraying them with a special directness, closeness and warmth.

Baldiga was particularly fascinated by the so-called “Schwuz-Tunten” – drag queens and gender-nonconforming people who confidently staged themselves, such as Melitta Sundström and Pepsi Boston. At that time, the SchwuZ club was located in the rear building at Hasenheide 54, which is now the Höfe am Südstern. His portraits, photographed from 1987 onwards, are full of respect and affection, they show “people who confidently understood and staged themselves as queers, with wigs and costume jewelry from the old clothes collection and an eye shadow and self-confidence to kneel down”.

At the end of 1984, Baldiga found out that he was HIV-positive. At a time when an HIV infection was still considered a death sentence, he began to document his life and his changing body with even greater intensity. His works from this period are ruthlessly honest and show both the desperation and the irrepressible will to live that drove him. In order to document himself and his HIV disease, he asked photographer Aaron Neubert to photograph him once a month until his death. This photo series “Warmth that only fire can give us” is available digitally (see link below)

Baldiga became an important activist in the fight against Aids and the associated stigmatization. He was involved in self-help groups and used his art to draw attention to the situation of HIV-positive people.

On December 4, 1993, at the age of just 34, Baldiga took his own life, exhausted by his illness. For his obituary, he himself chose a photo showing him with bloodshot eyes and a red clown’s nose – a final, powerful statement by an artist who wanted to retain control over his image and his story until the very end.

Baldiga’s artistic work was wide-ranging. In addition to 4 illustrated books and 5,000 photographs, he also left behind Super 8 films, music recordings and, above all, 40 volumes of diary entries, transcribed into over 7,000 PDF pages. These diaries provide an intimate insight into his life and Berlin’s queer scene.

Baldiga’s estate is part of the archive of the Schwules Museum Berlin. His photographs are displayed on the walls of SchwuZ, one of Berlin’s oldest queer clubs, which Baldiga often visited and documented.

In 2019 and 2024, two documentary films were made, “Rescue the Fire!” and “Baldiga – Unlocked Heart”, which make his life and work accessible to a wider audience.

Jürgen Baldiga’s grave in the Alter St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof churchyard in Berlin-Schöneberg is now a place of queer remembrance for the victims of the Aids pandemic.