The book features portraits of more than 100 Berlin artists. A project which I began at the beginning of the corona pandemic. For almost two years, art and artists were banned from the “stage” of the city, deprived of their visibility. At the same time, the public was deprived of its engagement with art and thus its cultural involvement. With this series, I let the artists reappear and show them in their studios, which are otherwise inaccessible to the public. The portraits show the artists in their individuality, without any staging on my part; I photographed the artists as they wanted to portray themselves. What the artists reveal about themselves was up to them. The portraits are not about my idea of art , but rather to show the diversity of artistic expression and life. The protected space in which the artists move in their self-created world is as diverse and as individual as the faces and the art of the artists themselves. The series shows the diversity of visual artists in their studios and subtly and points out that we need art in our lives and that art needs space. It is to bring the artists back to the surface. With these pictures I show at the same time a cross-section of the Berlin art scene and document the diversity of Berlin. The intimate artistic space becomes public without being betrayed to the public.
All photos were taken between August 2020 and June 2022