Self portrait 2006

Angelika Platen

*1942 Heidelberg, Germany

Angelika Platen, born in Heidelberg in 1942, studies Romance and Oriental Studies at the Free University of Berlin, before being enrolled at the Hamburg Academy of Fine Arts and ­taking over the “Art as a Commodity” page in the weekly paper Die Zeit from Willi Bongard, the founder of the Kunstkompass. This was in 1968, and from then until 1974 she produces her ­portraits of many, later advanced artists – with a ­Nikkormat. In 1972, Angelika Platen opens the Andy Warhol Exhibition in Gunter Sachs’ Galerie an der Milchstraße, which she directs for four years. In 1976, she becomes Chef des Communications for an industrial company in Paris. In 1997, she picks up a Nikon F100 and starts her second major period of artist portraits – still ­analogue and without colour film. “In black and white you see colours better”, says the photo­grapher, who has had a residence in Berlin again since 2000.