Monika Czosnowska

After the war, photo journalists like Will McBride (1931-2015) and René Burri (1933-2014) in his photo essay “The Germans”, documented the lifestyle of the generations in the years of “reconstruction”, and the newly arising youth culture. From the 1960s to the 1980s photographers like Diane Arbus (1923-71), Larry Clark (*1943) and Nan Goldin (*1953) portrayed people in their social surroundings and on the edge of society. In the Street Photography pictures by Garry Winogrand (1928-1984) and Beat Streuli (*1957) the street was turned into a stage. Thomas Ruff (*1958) threw a spotlight onto “soulscapes” with his monumental, highly detailed portraits in passport photo style. Since the start of the new millennium Lukas Einsele (*1963) has been dedicating himself to “catastrophe journalism” with portraits of landmine victims in all four corners of the world, in which he is trying to restore self-confidence and optimism to his subjects.

Over against the sheer inexhaustible variety of historical and contemporary categories in portrait photography, Monika Czosnowska has been developing a unique language of images since the start of the new millennium. She was born in Szczecin in 1977, came to Germany as a child and went to school in Braunschweig. In 1997 she began a course of study in graphic design and photography at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen. After basic studies in painting, graphics and drawing she decided to specialise in artistic photography. She studied under Bernhard Prinz, a professor for artistic photography, and Herta Wolf, a professor for the history and theory of photography. In the year 2000 she lived for a few months in Kraków and was inscribed as a guest student in the department of art history at the Jagiellonen University. Here she made an intensive study of portrait painting in previous centuries. In 2002 she was awarded an Erasmus grant to study at the College of Design in Zurich. In 2004 she completed her diploma studies in Essen with a series of photographs entitled “Novices” (Ills. 9-17), taken in Polish monasteries. In the same year this series made her one of the 10 prizewinners in a new competition for university students entitled gute aussichten – junge deutsche fotografie[4]: the jury consisted of the founder, Josefine Raab, the internationally famous photographer Andreas Gursky, and Mario Lombardo, the art director of the music and pop culture magazine, Spex. Since then Czosnowska has been regularly exhibited in the annual worldwide exhibitions presented by this promotional project for young talent. The most recent exhibition, held in the Museo de la Cancilleria in Mexico City from April to June 2017, was entitled gute aussichten deluxe – junge deutsche Fotografie nach der Düsseldorfer Schule. The exhibition will also be shown in the Haus der Photographie in the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg from January to May 2018. During her studies Czosnowska lived in Cologne: she is married to the actor, Jens Münchow, has two children and now lives in Berlin.