Duplications

The showcase ‘Angelika Platen. Verdopplungen’, which continues at the Museum der Fotografie in Görlitz until October 15, 2023, is the first exhibition to highlight the use of duplications as a stylistic tool in the German photographer’s oeuvre. Around 60 works, spanning five decades, highlight Platen’s role as both a fascinating artist and important chronicler of her time.

Art itself is a type of duplication, whereby both the physical and the metaphysical are captured and brought into a different form. This goes beyond a mere replication of reality, but rather represents its concentration into something that yields a different, at times clearer perception.

For more than 50 years, Angelika Platen has been photographing artists who ‘duplicate’ the world in this manner. In the process, she has created a visual Who’s Who of the Western post-war art scene. Many of the most significant artists of the second half of the twentieth century have stood in front of Platen’s camera – from Andy Warhol and Joseph Beuys to Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke and Günther Uecker.