Angelika Platen – Meine Frauen

07.May - 12.Jun 2022

ANGELIKA PLATEN – MEINE FRAUEN

Angelika Platen, who celebrated her 80th birthday this year, is known for her portrait photography. She has been photographing artists for over 50 years and captures their characters extremely aptly in her photos with a sure instinct.

It is no exaggeration to say that Angelika Platen has had them all in front of her camera - all the artists who became important for post-war art in Germany. From the very beginning, Angelika Platen demonstrated a keen sense for the big names of tomorrow. Since 1968, after studying art in Hamburg, she has photographed for the first time many of the artists who are now regarded as greats of the art world. At openings, for example, she meets Georg Baselitz, Robert Rauschenberg, Gerhard Richter and Andy Warhol. In addition, as a journalist, she edited the "KUNST als WARE" page for DIE ZEIT before putting the camera aside at the end of the 1970s to work as a gallery owner and communications expert. The art scene remains her real passion.

At the end of the 90s, she resumes her artistic activities and now mainly photographs the younger generation of artists, such as Jonathan Meese, Miriam Vlaming and Alicja Kwade. At the same time, she does not lose sight of the established artists and shows an interesting view of the long-term development of established positions with the younger photographs. "I was alienated with color at first," she says. "For me, black and white is already colorful, too." Increasingly, she also photographs digitally, exclusively with natural light, without spotlights or flashes, but precisely in color, and in these photographs she also comes very close to the artists.

Following our first Angelika Platen solo exhibition MEET YOUR ARTIST in 2019, our second exhibition will now exclusively feature portraits of female artists, published in a book MEINE FRAUEN published last year by Hatje Cantz. The exhibition shows 35 portraits from different creative phases, ranging from early photographic works from the late 60s to current works, exemplarily complemented with selected works of the photographed female artists, works by Hannah Hallermann, Leiko Ikemura, Malgosia Jankowska, Marlena Kudlicka, Rebecca Raue, Pola Sieverding, Brigitte Waldach, Donata Wenders, Gabriela Volanti and Miriam Vlaming are shown. In combination with selected artworks of the portrayed, the visitor gains a comprehensive impression of the personality of the female artists, indeed, he almost seems to meet them personally. Angelika Platen deliberately stages the artists with selected objects, in front of their paintings or sculptures, which are characteristic of the work of the individual artist.

For example, Angelika Platen, whose works are in numerous museums and collections - including, for example, the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, the Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf, and the Hamburger Kunsthalle - shows Leiko Ikemura looking intently and distantly at her own sculpture, portrays Monika Bonvicini in an unconventional and cheeky manner, or photographs Marina Abramovic during a performance. In a very personal way, Platen captures expressive traits of the artists in snapshots and opens up the possibility for the visitor to get closer to the artist and to dive into a fascinating cosmos of artists that normally remains rather hidden from the viewer.

Vernissage: 

Saturday 07.May. 2022, in the presence of the artist.

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