Life is One Live it Well

Henrik Malmström's Life is One Live it Well documents the barroom culture of St. Georg, a Hamburg district long associated with street prostitution and, more recently, rapid gentrification.

Over four years Malmström frequented bars including Mickey Mouse, Windstärke 11 and Zum Frühaufsteher, befriending the regulars, bartenders and clients until he was accepted as one of them. Shot in close-up color with on-camera flash, the photographs read like a drinker's own snapshots: balloons, velvet cushions, faded wallpaper and spilled champagne stand in for a fading era, while the people Malmström photographs, often dismissed by outsiders as the neighborhood's prostitutes, pimps and petty criminals, appear instead as people wanting company, a drink and a bit of peace. The publisher has likened the tone to Rainer Werner Fassbinder's fatalism crossed with Aki Kaurismäki's deadpan warmth.

The book is the first installment of Malmström's St. Georg trilogy, continued with A Minor Wrongdoing and OK Cloth Shop, both also published by Kominek after the Finnish photographer relocated to Hamburg. This copy is signed and numbered from the edition of 375.