Character Thieves
Oliver Sieber
Schaden
Feat. Böhm-Kobayashi
Softcover
72 Pages
330 x 240 mm
2007
ISBN 9783932187636
The new subculture of cosplayers – Manga fans – was photographed by Oliver Sieber who documented the most ardent fans dressing up as their favourite characters in several cities of the world. It is not a coincidence that the photographer pictures the fans at their own homes or in their neighbourhoods, wishing to capture the contrast between the surrounding reality and the fiction they try to relive. Aggressive, exotic, often grotesque comic book characters captured in ordinary interiors gain a new meaning. Oliver Sieber describes his own project: “I’m very interested in identity and a lot of my works deal with the subject of individuality and group identity. Costume play is a new and very special kind of subculture.
About the Artist
Oliver Sieber studied photography in Bielefeld and Düsseldorf. Since 1999 he has worked with Katja Stuke on Frau Böhm, a photo project in the form of a magazine, see www.frau-boehm.de. Sieber’s work usually takes the form of series and he is fascinated by the subject of identity and the phenomenon of young people and their subcultures. This led to the series SkinsModsTeds, B-Boyz B-Girlz, 11Girlfriends and Boy meets Girl. In 2006 he spent time in Japan for an artist in residence program, where he made the series J_Subs as well as character thieves, for which he photographed young people dressed up as their favorite manga characters. Over the past few years exhibitions of his work have been held at, among others, the Photographers Gallery London, the Photographische Sammlung SK/Stiftung Kultur in Cologne, the National Museum of Photography in Copenhagen, the Photo Espana Festival in Madrid, your Gallery in Krakow and Fotomuseum Winterthur. Sieber has published a number of books. The latest two are based on his work character thieves an imaginary club.
anders.os66.de
(source: http://anders.os66.de/)
Katja Stuke, born 1968, is a German photographer. She studied from 1988 to 1993 she studied visual communication in Dusseldorf, specializing in typography, photography / film. From 1993 to 1998 she worked for Michael Schirner. Together with Oliver Sieber, with whom she forms an artist couple and runs a joint studio in Düsseldorf, she publishes the photography project Frau Böhm, which developed into Böhm / Kobayashi.
ks68.de
(source: http://ks68.de/about/)
About the Publisher
BöhmKobayashi is Katja Stuke and Oliver Sieber who cover an extensive range of personas: photographers and artists, curators and exhibition organizers, designers and art book editors. Yet as they move through their photographic cosmos, it is not always so easy to determine where one identity ends and the other begins. Regardless, in their works and activities as artists and art facilitators they have long since become moderators of a very specific photographic culture.
boehmkobayashi.de
(source: https://boehmkobayashi.de/about/)
Schaden is a publisher of international contemporary photography based in Köln, Germany.
schaden.com
