40 diaries – 7500 pages filled with writing
When 19-year-old Jürgen Baldiga moved from Essen to West Berlin in 1979, he noted down almost daily what he felt was worth recording. The entries end in 1993, a few days before his untimely death. Exhausted by his AIDS diagnosis, he decided he no longer wanted to live.
What follows is a selection of Baldiga's entries, compiled for a blog and now republished in this version. This version consists of brief, extremely short excerpts from his extensive entries, offering only a glimpse into Baldiga's inner world.
This selection begins in 1990, by which time Baldiga had already been suffering from full-blown AIDS for more than a year, and ends shortly before his suicide in 1993.
* To protect the privacy of those still living, some names have been anonymized.
Selbstauskunft 1959 als strammer Achtpfünder das Licht der Welt erblickt Sohn eines Bergmanns Seit 1979 in Berlin Broterwerb als Koch / Barkeeper / Geliebter / Prostituierte / Gelegenheitsarbeiter Seit 1980 die ersten Gehversuche in Richtung der schönen Künste Lyrik / Musik / Film / Performance 1984 lustvoller Erwerb einer Immunschwäche Seit 1985 Autodidakt in der Kunst der Fotografie Seit 1989 vollends im Bilde oder besser: Was du heute kannst besorgen, das verschiebe nicht auf morgen. Jürgen Baldiga, 1992