Alexander Basta

Alexander Basta

The photographer Alexander Basta lives and works in Düsseldorf. He deals with faces - he has pressed the shutter button countless times for more than 25 years - he has especially portrayed prominent people such as Isabella Rossellini, Sir Peter Ustinov or Marianne Faithfull. Always in black and white with his large-format camera. He is particularly interested and attentive to musicians from the world elite of classical music. 32 of these musician portraits have been hanging in the Tonhalle Düsseldorf since 2001.

Alexander Basta's main interest is to get in touch with people, to open them up, to get an insight into their soul and to capture this moment. The moment of her life. Basta doesn't like loud photography, the aggressive one that literally takes people off and exposes their secrets. These types of images only attract voyeuristic attention for a short time. Rather, Basta wants to take pictures that will still exist and move in 100 years.

For Alexander Basta, black and white photography is a different kind of photography, a sculptural one. By abstracting, Basta gets to the core more clearly. Nothing distracts from the essential. The pictures become timeless.

Alexander Basta has had numerous exhibitions at home and abroad, editorial publications and is represented in several collections.

Text passages from the interview for "Republic of Culture"