DEICHTORHALLEN HAMBURG – HOUSE OF PHOTOGRAPHY

September 21, 2005 - January 8, 2006

Made possible through the generous support of the Circle of Friends of Photography, Inc. and the cooperation with the C/O Berlin, the Cultural Forum for Photography

Simone de Beauvoir, Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol, Madonna, Simone Rattle and Alfred Hitchcock are just a few of the great personalities that Barbara Klemm has portrayed in an unusual way with her „absolute“ photographic eye. 70 of these portraits are gathered in an exhibition at the House of Photography in the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg from September 21, 2005 until January 8, 2006.

For more than 30 years, Barbara Klemm set the character of the visual appearance of the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung. Week for week in the weekend supplement of the newspaper, she surprised readers with her photographic vision of current events. She became one of the most famous photographers in Germany through her highly regarded pictures, socially critical reportages and her steady and unobtrusive eye.

Her portraits speak in clear language – sympathetic and respectful. Whether Madonna stands out of the crowd of spectators at a fashion show like a white angel or the painter Emil Schumacher seemingly melts into the objects in his studio, it always results in photos that are unconstrained, authentic and full of electrical tension, which draw the viewer in and encourage them to clue into the deepest human nature and uniqueness of the photographed persons. What the artists, writers, philosophers, actors, and musicians all have in common is that they are in their familiar surroundings.

Barbara Klemm was born in Münster in 1939 and worked for the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung from 1959 to 2004. From 1970 on she worked there as editorial staff photographer for the Feature Pages and Politics sections.

The photographs of Barbara Klemm appear in well-known collections and have been shown in numerous exhibitions. Barbara Klemm has received several awards including the Dr. Erich Salomon Prize of the German Society for Photography (the highest award for photojournalism in Germany)and the Hessian Culture Prize. She is a member of the Academy of Arts in Berlin and honorary professor at the University for Applied Sciences at Darmstadt.