Blinky Palermo, 1973, at the Kunstverein Hamburg. Blinky Palermo, Mural, 1973, Kunstverein Hamburg @ VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024.
In the late Sixties, subcultures in the young Federal Republic of Germany set out to fundamentally change everyday life, culture, and art with new attitudes and perspectives. Against this backdrop, a young woman began a lifelong love affair with the art world. She picked up a camera and began to document this love. Today, more than five decades later, this artist’s body of work not only keeps the past and its art stars alive; it also offers a glimpse behind the artful facades of people who have changed how we view the world through their creative practice. Let’s meet this person: her name is Angelika Platen. Born in 1942 in Heidelberg, the 81-year-old now lives in Berlin-Schmargendorf. And that’s where we visit her.
I enter a stately old building in an unintimidating, beautiful part of the capital. I’m not sure what to expect as I struggle up the long set of stairs all the way to the top floor. Here, I meet Angelika Platen for the first time. My knowledge of her is limited to public information: in the early Seventies, when she was already a mother of two, she started taking photographs, producing iconic images of figures such as Beuys, Baselitz, Richter, and Christo, for example. And then she simply stopped – for a good while, at least. After finding success as a photo columnist for the German newspaper Die Zeit and as a director of the Gunter Sachs Gallery in Hamburg, she moved to Paris for love, became a mother for the third time, and opted for a secure, permanent work contract.
Platen then lived in Paris for a long time, with no involvement with the art market – until the Nineties, when she bought a new camera and began her second phase of work. Soon she was taking photographs again, but while her previous work had always been exclusively analogue and black and white, she was now shooting digitally and in colour. Since then, Angelika Platen has taken portraits of many of the young artists she had worked with in the Seventies, now in their later years. Her body of work includes portraits of current global stars such as Marina Abramović and Jeff Koons. After the rise of the Me Too movement, Platen began to exclusively portray women in the arts for a period of time, as captured in the book Women (German title: Meine Frauen), published in 2021 by Hatje Cantz Verlag.
Here, in Platen’s apartment, I can feel a great sense of ease in the photographer’s demeanour. To be more precise, she exudes a certainty of having used the time given to her to produce something both significant and beautiful. I’m torn between admiration and envy. Angelika Platen radiates a calm presence that relaxes me as an interviewer. The apartment stretches over two floors. Platen’s studio is upstairs; this is where her prints are stored, ready to dazzle in one of the numerous exhibitions the artist has planned for the near future. Yet for now, we stay downstairs, at the kitchen table. There are pastries and tea.
James Rosenquist, 1973, in Cologne. James Rosenquist PRESIDENT ELECT © James Rosenquist Foundation / Used by permission. All rights reserved / / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024. The Pop Art pioneer travels from New York to Cologne in 1973, specifically for his exhibition in the booth of the Rolf Ricke Gallery at the Cologne Art Market. I capture James Rosenquist in front of his large-scale work, President Elect, just after he has finished carrying around the large, multi-part artwork. Afterwards, Rosenquist takes my camera and photographs me in turn.
Joseph Beuys, protest march, 1970, in Cologne. In 1967, Hein Stünke and Rudolf Zwirner found the Verein progressiver deutscher Kunsthändler (Association of Progressive German Art Dealers). Not long after this, the first Cologne Art Market takes place. Only three years later, those excluded by the elitist process of choosing and appointing participants embark on a protest march towards the art market. Joseph Beuys leads the way. The photograph is entitled We Enter the Art Market (German title: Wir betreten den Kunstmarkt). It captures the demand for the democratisation of the art market. The protesters are outside: Vostell, Beuys, Rywelski, and Staeck. Inside, Rudolf Zwirner shuts the door on them.
Sascha Ehlert: I heard that you’re currently working on a book project. Can you tell us anything about it at this early stage?
Angelika Platen: It’s going to be a monograph. I started it last autumn, when I was at Paris Photo. There, I made contacts with various publishers and generally tried to get an idea of what’s out there.
SE: Do you already know how you would like to begin the monograph, or what the oldest photograph featured in it will be?
AP: Yes, I’d love to show you that sometime. I want it to start with one of the first photos I took, which was a portrait of my grandmother from Antwerp. I got the name Platen from her. I don’t know if you noticed, but in my hallway, there’s that Flemish chest and the chandelier next to it; both are mementos of my family.
SE: How old were you when you took this picture of her?
AP: I must have been about 14 or 15 years old. After this portrait of my grandmother, there’ll be a photo that someone took of me at my high school graduation. Then, my first commissioned work will follow. In the Sixties, I spent three months hitchhiking to the Algerian Sahara. I photographed the desert, but also Ahmed Ben Bella, the first president of independent Algeria. I also spent a short time as the only woman in the Fremdenlegion (Foreign Legion). When I was back in Germany, I did some commercial jobs, for Porsche or Feinkost Käfer, for example. The first photos – the first good photos I took of artists – well, that actually started with Joseph Beuys, whom I first photographed in 1967. By then, I was already a mother of two. I had given birth to my children in 1966 and took them with me to exhibitions from the beginning.
SE: When you photographed your grandmother as a teenager, did you already realise that you would dedicate your life to photography and art?
AP: In my youth, I loved drawing floor plans and leafing through architecture magazines. In doing that, I gained something important: a sense of space. I think that helps me a lot with my photography work. I also don’t like it when people crop my pictures because my composition is always intentional.
SE: Would you describe the search for the right image and the right spatial composition as a conscious process, or does that happen more intuitively?
AP: My work life was split into two periods: the analogue period and the digital period. In the first one, I always relied on having the right lens on the camera; I mostly alternated between wide-angle and telephoto lenses. But then, when I started shooting digitally some decades later, I lost that sense of space a bit. I often worked with cropped fragments, always getting very close. You can see a lot of that in my book with the portraits of women.
Anthony Goicolea, 2002, in Paris. In 2002, I spent most of my time in France, my chosen home. I attended the FIAC, one of the major Parisian fairs, every year. I met many artists I had photographed there, but also young up-and-coming artists who were still at the beginning of their rise to fame: Anthony Goicolea, born in 1971. A portrait in front of a self-portrait. Anthony had worn a bikini which left white marks on his tanned back. I asked him to adopt the same pose as in his self-portrait; Anthony played along.
Sigmar Polke, 1971, in Willich. On a very hot summer day in 1971, I drive to the artist commune Willich in the Eifel. I knock on the door, and Sigmar opens it with his shirt open and his belly exposed. We both stand in front of a large mirror, looking at each other. I take the camera off my shoulder, hold it with both hands, adjust the focus, and press the shutter button. Two in the Mirror (German title: Zwei im Spiegel) is born.
SE: Did your project, Women, emerge in direct response to Me Too?
AP: To some extent, yes. In addition to that, I noticed that in my early period, I always photographed so many men – back then, in the Sixties and Seventies, I only took pictures of three women over all those years and almost exclusively encountered men in my work. For the longest time, nobody questioned this, and I didn’t think about it too much. Let me tell you a story that really shows what it was like back then. When I worked at the Gunter Sachs Gallery, I was tasked with organising a major exhibition at the Hotel Atlantic in Hamburg. So, for the opening night, I wore a pink pantsuit which I’d bought just for this occasion – and was turned away at the entrance. The explanation: women wearing pants are not allowed inside the hotel. They didn’t want to let me in, even though I had curated the exhibition. Only when the director intervened did I finally get in. That’s what it was like back then. Look, when I was pregnant for the first time and I was still at university, it was completely unthinkable that I would continue my studies and attend lectures with a visibly pregnant belly. Opening my own bank account? Forget about it. I wanted to work even though I had children, and I always tried to resist, but it was very difficult.
SE: Your photographic work has some unique features. There is the spatial composition, the omnipresent mirrors, and your patient waiting and engaging with the subjects of your photographs. This last element is very important to you in order to capture the right moment, isn’t it? How long do you have to wait to coax artists out of their shells?
AP: This has also changed a lot over time. Initially, I photographed artists who were the same age as me. Today, I take pictures of people who are as old as my children or grandchildren. So, naturally, my approach today is different. In the past, it was often about winking and flirting. Nowadays, I frequently work with artists who also consciously try to convey a certain image and who want to have a say in the selection of the photographs. I usually show them the first photos I’ve taken and then ask, ‘How would you like me to proceed from here?’ It has become a collaborative effort, in a way.
Gerhard Richter, 1971, in the painter's studio. The empty chair in the studio awaits the artist. The painting of clouds over Sylt in the background hints that a young Gerhard Richter is about to take his seat. He succeeds in grasping what can only be grasped vaguely. This image of him was the first in a new series 45 years ago.
Credits
Words: Sascha Ehlert
Photography: Angelika Platen.
As featured in SLEEK 80 – FORTUNE. Available in print and digital here.