Since the late 1960s, Angelika Platen has taken photographs of more than 500 artists. As iconographic images, some of her artist portraits can no longer be separated from the person portrayed – meaning that Platen herself has become an icon of the genre.

The exhibition at the Office Reiner Opoku presents portraits of the two foremost contemporary German artists: Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter. The majority of photographs on view here were taken in Dusseldorf in the early 1970s.

The term ‘touch’ appears in Platen’s work in its earlier, tentative stage, as a sensitive approach between the photographer and the person being portrayed. The degree of intimacy that she achieves with her pictures makes it possible to sense the artists as individuals, beyond the art; it is in no way anything less than an actual touch. Platen’s approaches are glimpses ‘into the countenance and soul’ of those portrayed: they touch, and beyond this, they complete the artists’ oeuvre with an additional perspective, that of the human being.