Archive Exhibition
Angela Hampel. Das Künstlerische Werk (Angela Hampel: The Artistic Work) May 26 - September 11, 2022 Städtische Galerie, Dresden Best known for her paintings and prints of powerful women from mythology and the Bible, Angela Hampel also created installations, performances, and artist books. These are shown here in the first major retrospective of her work in thirty years — and the first ever in Dresden, where she has lived and practiced for more than forty years. The catalog and brochure are in German and English. Exhibition
Revolutionary Romances - Prologue Transcultural Histories in the GDR April 13 - September 4, 2022 Albertinum, Dresden The exhibition and research project "Revolutionary Romances. Transcultural Art Histories in the GDR" focuses on the cultural relationships between the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the socialist-oriented countries and independence movements of the Global South in Asia, Africa, and Latin America in the period 1949-1990. It is the starting point of the institution-wide project Kontrapunkte. The prologue show introduces different topics of the research through collection works and interventions by contemporary artists, and acts as background for an international conference that explores the international(ist) relations of the GDR further. A large exhibition presenting the outcome of the project will take place at the Albertinum in fall 2023. Exhibition
Rausch der Bilder: Die Sammlung Chagas Freitas - Kunst aus der DDR und ihre Reise nach Brasilien (A Rush of Images: The Chagas Freitas Collection - Art from the GDR and its Trip to Brazil) December 18, 2021 - February 22, 2022 Dieselkraftwerk, Cottbus An exhibition of East German and Brazilian art collected by Chagas Freitas. His collection of approximately 1,200 works, includes paintings, drawings and prints by East German artists Gerda Lepke, Max Uhlig, Horst Bartnig, Hermann Glöckner, Strawalde and many more. Exhibition
Willi Sitte: Die Retrospektive (Willi Sitte: The Retrospective) October 3, 2021 - February 6, 2022 Kunstmuseum Moritzburg, Halle/Saale February 28, 2021 marked the 100th birthday of the artist and cultural politician Willi Sitte (1921-2013, one of the best-known artists from the GDR and also one of the most controversial. This retrospective exhibition looks at Sitte's complete oeuvre, which was created between the 1930s and 2005, providing a comprehensive overview of the development of one of the most important representatives of the official art system in the GDR. Flyer Exhibition
Point of No Return: Wende und Umbruch in der ostdeutschen Kunst (Point of No Return: The Wende and Upheaval in Eastern German Art) July 23 - November 3, 2019 Museum der bildende Künste, Leipzig Thirty years after 1989, it is time to look at the peaceful Revolution in the GDR and the social upheaval in eastern Germany from the perspective of the visual arts. “Point of No Return” displays more than 300 works of all styles from 106 artists, on approximately 1,500 square metres. As the symbolic centre of the Peaceful Revolution, Leipzig is predestined for Germany’s first major exhibition on this theme, which can be regarded as the most significant exhibition in the 30th anniversary year of the Peaceful Revolution. Exhibition
Medea muckt auf: Radikale Künstlerinnen hinter dem Eisernen Vorhang (Medea Rebels: Radical Women Artists Behind the Iron Curtain) December 8, 2018 - March 31, 2019 Lipsiusbau, Dresden Medea - Femme Fatale and Superwoman from the East. Mythology was a frequent topic in East German literature and painting before 1989, a way to engage with complex themes from contemporary life. Images of Medea, Kassandra, or Penthesilea were often reflections upon the artist's role as a woman artist and as a woman in society. These artists played with fire, provoked, protested, and experimented with art, refusing to fit politely into societal expectations for women, socialist and bourgeois alike. This exhibition includes work by artists from the former Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union. The majority of works are by East German artists, including Tina Bara (*1962), Annemirl Bauer (1939 - 1989), Sibylle Bergemann (1941 - 2010), Else Gabriel (*1962), Angela Hampel (*1956), Christa Jeitner (*1935), Angelika Kroker für die Mode- und Performancegruppe Allerleirauh, Künstlerinnengruppe Erfurt mit u.a. Monika Andres (*1962) und Verena Kyselka (*1957), Evelyn Richter (*1930), Christine Schlegel (*1950), Gundula Schulze Eldowy (*1954), Cornelia Schleime (*1953), Gabriele Stötzer (*1953), Erika Stürmer-Alex (*1938), Karla Woisnitza (*1952), Hanne Wandtke (*1939), Doris Ziegler (*1949). Exhibition
Strawalde / Jürgen Böttcher. Zeichnung, Malerei, Film (Strawalde / Jürgen Böttcher. Drawing, Painting, Film) November 3, 2018 - January 27 2019 Städtische Galerie Dresden The artist and prize-winning director Strawalde / Jürgen Böttcher (b. 1931) is a creative dynamo. His searching, dancer-like and passionate process results in paintings, drawings, overpainting, collages, and films result from a searching, dancer-like and passionate process that the artist himself sees as an adventure. This exhibition marks the first major solo exhibition of his work in Dresden, where his work as a student and teacher began. Exhibition
Ostdeutsche Malerei und Skulptur 1949-1990 (East German Painting and Sculpture, 1949-1990) June 15, 2018 - January 7, 2019 Albertinum, Dresden Organized in response to the vehement debate in the press last fall about the lack of East German art in the museum's permanent exhibition, this temporary "presentation" shows East German art from the Albertinum's collection. Organized according to accession date, the exhibition only offers never-shown and long-absent works promise new discoveries, it also offers insight into the changing collection strategy employed by the museum the Cold War. Artists, including Karl-Heinz Adler, Rudolf Bergander, Wieland Förster, Hubertus Giebe, Hermann Glöckner, Peter Graf, Petra Kasten, Harald Hakenbeck, Angela Hampel, Ernst Hassebrauk,Bernhard Heisig, Peter Herrmann, Hans Jüchser, Wolfgang Mattheuer, Theodor Rosenhauer, Christine Schlegel, Werner Stötzer, Strawalde, Werner Tübke, Willy Wolff, Walter Womacka, reveal the variety of art created in the GDR. There is a significant accompanying program with events nearly every week. (Program PDF) Exhibition
Für Ruth, der Himmel in Los Angeles: Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt und David Horvitz (For Ruth, the Sky in Los Angeles: Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt and David Horvitz) September 8, 2018 - January 6, 2019 Albertinum, Dresden This one-room exhibition gets its name from a watercolor painting from 2016 that the American artist David Horvitz sent the the (East) German artist Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt, a Mail Art and visual poetry artist who has been long overlooked in the West. Born in Wurzen, Saxony, in 1932, Wolf-Rehfeldt was active as an artist from the beginning of the 1970s until 1990. Using an Erika Typewriter, she created complex graphic compositions that juxtapose text and image. 62 of these timeless "typewritings" -- diagrams, patterns, abstract poetry, and collages -- form the core of this small exhibition. Horvitz's work is part of Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt's comprehensive archive of Mail Art from around the world. Exhibition
SIBYLLE. Fotografien eines Modemagazins (SIBYLLE: Photography of a Fashion Magazine) April 28 - November 4, 2018 Schloss Pillnitz (Dresden) The magazine SIBYLLE, which appeared six times a year beginning in 1956 with a print run of 200,000, was well-loved in East Germany and therefore regularly sold out. Thought of as the East's Vogue and dedicated primarily to fashion, it was subtitled, "Magazine for Fashion and Culture" because those who made it, above all photographer and designers, considered photography, design, fashion and culture of equal value. Photography was a particularly important aspect of the magazine. The photographers for SIBYLLE had mastered not only their field, they set the standard. SIBYLLE: Photography of a Fashion Magazine is the first exhibition to focus explicitly on the photographers of SIBYLLE, showing the work of thirteen of its most important photographers: Sibylle Bergemann, Arno Fischer, Ute Mahler, Werner Mahler, Sven Marquart, Elisabeth Meinke, Roger Melis, Hans Praefke, Günter Rössler, Rudolf Schäfer, Wolfgang Wandelt, Michael Weidt, Ulrich Wüst In cooperation with the Kunsthalle Rostock / Curated by the Kunsthalle Rostock. From Dec 3, 2017 - Feb 11, 2018 in the Kunstmuseum Diesel Kraftwerk Cottbus. Exhibition
Hinter dem Horizont ... Kunst der DDR aus den Sammlungen des Staatlichen Museums Schwerin (Behind the Horizon... Art of the GDR from the Collections of the State Museums Schwerin) 6. Juli - 7. Oktober 2018 Staatliches Museum Schwerin A selection of 100 paintings, drawings, graphics, and sculptures from the State Museum of Schwerin's collection of East German art shows the breadth of artistic positions and opens up new perspectives beyond the prescribed state art and pursues the quiet but critical voices. In its rejection of ideological guidelines, traditional genres like portraiture, landscapes, and still life open up an unexpected look at East German reality. Dreams, desires, and projections are evident in the works, w sich see the horizon not as a rigid border, but rather as a free space for the imagination and for associations. In the tension between intimacy and world view, a specific artistic language developed beyond the stereotype of Socialist Realism. This was especially the case with performance art.
Call for Applications Culture in the Cold War: East German Art, Music, and Film NEH Institute for college/university teachers as well as professionals working in museums/cultural institutions in the US June 17 - July 14, 2018 Northampton, Massachusetts Applications due March 1, 2018. For more information, click on the title above Culture in the Cold War seeks to break new ground in our understanding of socialist modernity—recently the focus of much scholarship on material culture and the built environment—by exploring new research to provide a sustained, interdisciplinary examination into the role of cultural policy and the individual in the visual arts, music, and film in the GDR. Drawing on the latest research in art history, musicology, film studies, and German studies, it will re-evaluate debates about artistic freedom and censorship; consider relations between high and low (popular), as well as official and alternative arts cultures; and establish the importance and timeliness of revisiting this period of recent history in today’s college classrooms. Scholarship on the arts under socialism began undergoing an important shift about ten years ago, as it attempted to overcome an exclusive focus on the impact of repressive social structures; this was closely tied to a flattening and devaluation of socialist cultural achievements. Newer scholarship seeks to re-appropriate the field by bringing contemporary interests and research questions to bear upon it and is now yielding more nuanced and in-depth insights, which highlight commonalities, as well as differences between socialist and capitalist modernity. The Institute gathers and builds upon this new scholarship, incorporating work on the visual arts, music, and film and focusing on the GDR. Given that the different disciplines we engage exhibit significant interpretive differences and that the experience of GDR artists working in different media was also quite varied, the Institute expects to challenge conventional assumptions about periodization as well as socialist ideology and cultural policies. Speakers will include Sean Allan, Sky Arndt-Briggs, Barton Bygg, Joy Calico, April Eisman, Johanna Junker, & Elaine Kelly Exhibition
Christa Böhme und Lothar Böhme, Malerei (Christa Böhme and Lothar Böhme, Painting) September 16 - November 19, 2017 Kunstmuseum Diesel Kraftwerk Cottbus For the first time in thirty years, the work of Christa Böhme (1940-1991) and Lothar Böhme (* 1938) are being shown together in an exhibition. Their work belongs to the so-called "Berlin School." In a conscious retreat into "private" motifs like still lifes, figures, interieurs, and even (city) landscapes, the artists sought to develop their work, especially in relationship to Cezanne. Exhibition
MALSTROM. Bilder und Figuren, 1982-1986 (Maelstrom: Paintings and Figures, 1982-1986) Sept 8 - Nov 11, 2017 Rosenhang Museum, Weilburg/Lahn This exhibition shows the work of five Neoexpressionist artists who left East Germany in the mid 1980s: Ralf Kerbach (b. 1956), Helge Leiberg (b. 1954), Hans Scheib (b. 1949), Cornelia Schleime (b. 1953), and Reinhard Stangl (b. 1950). Exhibition
Geniale Dilletanten: Subkultur der 1980er Jahre in West-Ostdeutschland (Ingenious Dilettantes: Subculture in East and West Germany in the 1980s) July 15 - Nov 19, 2017 Beginning at the end of the 1970s, an artistic alternative scene emerged in East and West Germany with loud protests and targeted provocations. Infected by the British Punk movement, youths organized themselves in Do-It-Yourself ways and often worked on the other side of popular art, cultural norms, and societal expectations. This exhibition looks at major punk bands and a handful of artists inspired by them in East and West Germany in the 1980s. Conference
Die "Wende" -- Kunst- und Mediensysteme in Osteuropa nach den politischen umbruechen 1945 und 1989/91 July 6-8, 2017 Institut fuer Kunstgeschichte, Universitaet Leipzig Exhibition
Karl-Heinz Adler. Ganz Konkret March 30 - June 25, 2017 Galerie Neue Meister, Dresden The Dresden artist Karl-Heinz Adler (*1927) is a prominent representative of concrete art in Germany. In 2017, he celebrates his 90th birthday. This exhibition brings together 21 works from various stages in the artist's oeuvre. Exhibition
Werner Tübke - Master Painter Between East and West January 28 - May 14, 2017 Museum de Fundatie, Zwolle, Netherlands A must-see retrospective of one of East Germany's most prominent painters, Werner Tübke (1929-2004). Exhibition
Elisabeth Voigt. Im Strudel der Zeit February 3 - May 7, 2017 Kunsthalle der Sparkasse Leipzig This exhibition offers a comprehensive view into the surviving work of painter/printmaker Elisabeth Voigt. Born in Leipzig in 1893, Voigt studied at the Leipzig Academy from 1920-22. From 1923-29, she studied at the Dresden Academy in Berlin-Charlottenburg, where her teachers were Karl Hofer and Käthe Kollwitz. During World War II, her studio in Berlin was destroyed and with it, much of her early work. After the war, she worked as a professor at the Leipzig Academy (HGB), where she taught artists who would go on to become major names in the East German art world, including Wolfgang and Ursula Mattheuer and Gerhard Kurt Mueller. In a career that spanned more than 50 years, Voigt created more than 100 paintings, 500 drawings, and approximately 60 prints, especially woodblock prints. There is an exhibition catalog, ISBN: 978-3-9815840-9-7. Symposium
Zur Ausstellung Hinter der Maske. Künstler in der DDR April 24, 2017 Barberini Museum, Potsdam In the GDR, official state art was expected to be political. This ideological intent has been the focus of numerous exhibitions in recent years. But how did the artists in East Germany see themselves and their relationship to this officially prescribed function for art? The upcoming exhibition Behind the Masks, Artists in the GDR will dedicate itself to the playful ways that artists in East Germany represented themselves. The exhibition will take place from October 28, 2017 until February 4, 2018 in the Museum Barberini. Exhibition
Die wilden 80er Jahre in der deutsch-deutschen Malerei December 3, 2016 - March 12, 2017 Potsdam Museum Die 1980er Jahre waren ein besonderes Jahrzehnt in der deutsch-deutschen Geschichte. Sie kulminierten im Wendejahr 1989 und fanden mit der Wiedervereinigung Deutschlands am 3. Oktober 1990 ihren historischen Abschluss. Die Ausstellung beleuchtet gleichzeitig die Werke ost- und westdeutscher KünstlerInnen aus dieser Dekade und macht zahlreiche Schnittmengen in ihren künstlerischen Haltungen sichtbar. Im Zentrum der Betrachtung steht dabei die menschliche Figur, die in expressiver oder realistischer, in abstrahierender oder neo-surrealistischer Malweise dargestellt wurde. In fünf thematischen Sektionen präsentiert das Potsdam Museum zur Ausstellung „Die wilden 80er Jahre in der deutsch-deutschen Malerei“ etwa 90 Gemälde und 30 Aquarelle, Zeichnungen und Grafiken. Am Beginn der Schau steht eine jüngst an das Potsdam Museum gegangene Dauerleihgabe von Werken Bernhard Heisigs – dem Leipziger Altmeister der figurativen Malerei. Herausragende Werke aus der Sammlung unseres Hauses werden mit Leihgaben aus wichtigen deutschen Museen und Privatsammlungen in einen Dialog gesetzt. Bekannten Namen der Kunstgeschichte werden gezielt Entdeckungen zur Seite gestellt, die den Kanon um aussagekräftige Positionen erweitern. Exhibition
Hubertus Giebe. Schein und Chock 15. October 2016 - 8. January 2017 Staedtische Galerie Dresden Die Herbstausstellung der Städtischen Galerie ist dem malerischen und plastischen Werk von Hubertus Giebe gewidmet. Der Künstler gehört von seinen Anfängen in den 1970er Jahren an bis heute zu den wichtigen künstlerischen Stimmen aus der Stadt Dresden. Im Zentrum seines Oeuvres stehen die großformatigen, expressiv inszenierten Geschichtsbilder. Neben dieser Werkgruppe hat er sich durchgängig auch mit den Themen Landschaft, Porträt, Stillleben und dem weiblichen Akt auseinander gesetzt. Weniger bekannt sind seine plastischen Arbeiten. Die gesamte thematische wie stilistische Vielfalt wird in der Ausstellung sichtbar. Für sein Kunstschaffen bildet Hubertus Giebes breites Wissen um die Kunstgeschichte den Referenzrahmen. Der Künstler studierte ab 1974 zuerst an der Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden, legte sein Diplom jedoch 1978 an der Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig ab. Anschließend war er Meisterschüler von Bernhard Heisig. Von 1979 bis 1991 lehrte er an der Dresdner Kunsthochschule, zuletzt als Dozent für Malerei und Grafik. Heute ist Hubertus Giebe freischaffend tätig. 2008 erhielt er den renommierten Wilhelm-Morgner-Preis für Malerei. Für die Ausstellung werden Hubertus Giebes wichtigste Werke zusammengetragen, die in ihrer Gesamtheit einen Einblick in die Entwicklung seines malerischen und plastischen Schaffens bieten. Zur Ausstellung erscheint ein umfangreicher Katalog im Sandstein Verlag. Exhibition
Bernhard Heisig. Insights January 30 - April 3, 2016 Kunstmuseum Dieselkraftwerk Cottbus Emerging from two permanent loans from the Vera Schreck Collection, Newspaper Reader (1995) and Open Window (1989), this exhibition examines how Heisig's portraiture engages with history and everyday events. Conference
Land der Grafik. Konjunktur eines Mediums in der DDR 14.–16. Januar 2016 Alfred Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg Greifswald Konzept: Prof. Dr. Sigrid Hofer (Philipps-Universität Marburg), Dr. Paul Kaiser (Dresdner Institut für Kulturstudien), Dr. Kornelia Röder (Staatliches Museum Schwerin), Dr. Christian Suhm (Stiftung Alfred Krupp Kolleg Greifswald) Institutionelle Träger/ Organisatoren: Dresdner Institut für Kulturstudien, Alfred Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg Greifswald, Staatliches Museum Schwerin Wissenschaftliche Kooperationspartner: Institut für Kunstgeschichte der Universität Marburg (Arbeitskreis "Kunst in der DDR") und SMWK-Verbundsprojekt "Westkunst/Ostkunst. Kunstsystem und 'Geltungskünste' im geteilten und wiedervereinigten Deutschland zwischen 1945 und 2000" (Institut für Soziologie an der Technischen Universität Dresden und Institut für Kunstgeschichte an der Universität Leipzig) Exhibition
Out of Control! Color Graphics and Mail Art in the GDR November 20, 2015 - Februar 14, 2016 Galerie Alte & Neue Meister Schwerin, Schloss Güstrow Graphics in the GDR - that was a refuge for art and at the same time a medium of freedom. The high quality of the works created and their broad appeal emerged from the outstanding artists and the singularities of the art system. The graphic arts, in particular, opened up a free space. This exhibition shows the functions and meaning of graphics in the GDR in their breadth and joyful experimentation. The Schwerin collection emphasizes color graphics and the activities of the Mail Art network. With subversive humor, the works show what art in a dictatorship achieved. The artists developed unconventional techniques and strategies in working creatively around societal circumstances. Art and unofficial exhibition spaces became an alternative public sphere. Moreover, artists intervened in the official canon of the GDR with performances and land art. Mecklenburg offered itself as a retreat for these experimental forms. 47th Annual Convention
Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies November 19-22, 2015 Philadelphia Marriott Downtown For a listing of East German topics at this year's conference, see the pdf below.
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