Panorama of Artists

The exhibition Tracing Artists: Portraits 1968–2008 by Angelika Platen is showing at the premises of the Freundeskreis Willy-Brandt-Haus in Berlin from 26 January to 5 March 2017.

It has been half a century since Angelika Platen first began to shoot portraits of fellow artists. She began her project in the sixties, during the early art fairs and at the fourth edition of the documenta fair in Kassel (1968). Her portraits evolved into an extraordinary panorama of the contemporary arts scene.

Platen’s subjects included Man Ray, Andy Warhol and Joseph Beuys; she captured Christo at five in the morning, overseeing the construction of his 85-metre-high documenta balloon, and photographed Blinky Palermo and Hanne Darboven with their work; in 1968, Henry Moore posed for her next to his sculpture in front of the new National Gallery in Berlin; Sigmar Polke ran and jumped towards her camera; Gerhard Richter and Angelika Platen took turns photographing each other in the artist’s studio. Yet Platen also focused her attention on a new generation of both acclaimed and budding artists, such as Christian Boltanski, Anton Corbijn, Jeff Koons, Neo Rauch, Julian Rosefeldt and many more.


Tracing Artists: Portraits 1968–2008 was curated by Gisela Kayser and Angelika Platen

In addition, the exhibition Angelika Platen. dialog. digital. analog opens at the Michael Schultz Gallery in Berlin from 27 January 2017.

For further information visit Freundeskreis Willy-Brandt-Haus e.V. Berlin