Regina Schmeken

Schreiben mit Licht – Writing with light

 

"Die Fotografie ist für mich ein künstlerisches Medium, die Kontraste zwischen Schwarz und Weiß und die Möglichkeit der Abstraktion spielen eine wichtige Rolle. Mit diesen Mitteln die Wirklichkeit nicht nur zu kopieren, sondern zu verdichten und zu reflektieren, macht meine Bildsprache aus."

 

("Photography is an artistic medium for me, the contrasts between black and white and the possibility of abstraction play an important role. Using these means not only to copy reality, but to concentrate and reflect it, makes up my visual language.")

 

 

Regina Schmeken joined the Süddeutsche Zeitung as a photographer in autumn 1986 on the initiative of the editor-in-chief. Since then she has documented and above all commented on current events in her work. With her subjective perspective and her often poetic visual language, she has not only changed the appreciation of photography as an independent medium in the newspaper, but has also decisively influenced photojournalism with her pictorial inventions. "These are rather quiet commentaries on major events," says Carla Schulz-Hoffmann in her book "Regina Schmeken - die neue Mitte" about her works.

Biography

 

Regina Schmeken was born in 1955 in Gladbeck and studied art and German language and literature in Munich and Essen. Since 1977 she has dedicated her artistic work to black-and-white photography. Since 1980 she has regularly exhibited her work and received national and international awards - among others the Prix de la Critique of the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie in Arles in 1978 and the Dr.-Erich-Salomon-Prize of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie in 1996. Museums and collections such as the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the New York MoMa, the Pinakothek der Moderne and the Museum für Fotografie in Berlin own her photographs. Their exhibition "Die neue Mitte" was sent on a world tour by the Goethe-Institut headquarters in 2002 and was shown in over 80 capitals on all five continents until 2008. In 1986 Regina Schmeken joined the Süddeutsche Zeitung as a photographer. She currently lives in Berlin.