Ute Lemper has lived in New York since the late 1990s. The dancer, musical actress, chanson singer and actress who has become a world star is passionate about using taxis. “As soon as I get in, I step into the world, into the culture of the cab, into the story of the driver, into the history of New York City,” she writes in her text “The Truest Mirror of New York Reality”. It is the most charming, because it is the most enthusiastic and also the most critical guest contribution for the photo book “Taxi Drivers” by Klaus Maria Einwanger.
Four years ago, the photographer portrayed taxi drivers and their cars in New York, London and Tokyo. And so too, from this special perspective, these three cities. The people, the taxi drivers, are at the center of the images that Einwanger now shows in his volume, if not in every shot, but overall. You can see pride in their faces. But also defiance, tiredness, worry. In the three world cities, where many men and few women work, this job is a particular challenge. The threat posed by services such as Uber is particularly great there.
In a suit, with a tie and white gloves: Driving a taxi through Tokyo is also a question of style.
(Photo: Klaus Maria Einwanger)
The curator and author Almut Hüfler describes this situation in her introductory text. Digital change is changing taxi driving. It spoils the prices and makes the job more precarious, it changes the way drivers see themselves. This is something special in Tokyo: the drivers dress in suits, wear ties and white gloves. Many of them are retired, used to work in completely different professions and now have to continue working to make ends meet financially. Their reputation is great, there is even a Taxi Day, August 5th, in their honor. And they have a particularly strict code: They don’t give up until they find the right address, which isn’t always easy in Tokyo, even for those familiar with the area. And are obliged to transport drunk people too.
In New York, however, there is no standardized reality. What applies to urban society as a whole, writes Ute Lemper, also applies to the taxi drivers, who come from around 160 different nations: “You don’t have to fit in, you don’t have to take off your veil or turban, you don’t have to shave your beard and you’re allowed to Just wear your traditional clothes without attracting attention and without anyone giving a damn, because they make up the mosaic of the cityscape.”
The photographs provide information about the self-image of the taxi driver
Lemper is often questioned by the drivers – and in turn questions them. She is curious about the music playing in the wagons. Which is why she also regrets that the drivers and passengers are now separated from each other by Plexiglas or foil, and not just because of Corona. They are also bothered by the screens that are found in more and more taxis. And that many of the cars are now pretty worn out.
Photographer Klaus Maria Einwanger put himself completely in the hands of the drivers for his project. Let her choose the routes and destinations. Didn’t tell them how to pose either. Einwanger’s shots are of great clarity, even where the subject drifts into hidden object. You have depth of field. And although many of them have people and vehicles in motion, there is nothing fleeting about them, and the focus is not on the dynamics of progress. Rather, they radiate calm, even when they show a hectic traffic situation. Have something from paintings.
Both stylish: buses and taxis in London.
(Photo: Klaus Maria Einwanger)
Above all, they get the taxi drivers out of anonymity. The pictures tell something about the moods and attitudes of the people and thus reveal a lot about the self-image that the taxi drivers have of themselves and their job. Then again they recede into the background, in some of the photographs taxis only seem to play a supporting role. But they are always there, always available, an indelible part of the cityscape.
The only photographs that do not show taxis are those taken by Klaus Maria Einwanger from the back of the vehicle – a view of New York, London and Tokyo from below. As the taxi drivers, intimate connoisseurs of their (chosen) homeland, constantly have.
Klaus Maria Einwanger: Taxi Drivers. Written In Their Faces. KME Studios, Rosenheim 2023. 192 pages, 72 euros.