Unrestrained Self-Movements

Art with Photography in the GDR

29/08/—15/11/26

 

Claus Bach, Tina Bara, Micha Brendel, Kurt Buchwald, Lutz Dammbeck/Karin Plessing, Klaus Elle, Irene Fischer, Thomas Florschuetz, Else Gabriel, Rainer Görß, Klaus Hähner-Springmühl, Erich-Wolfgang Hartzsch, Frank Herrmann, Bernd Hiepe, Wolf Kahlen, Stefan Kayser, York der Knoefel,  Evelyn Krull, Matthias Leupold, Lieberknecht/Stoy, Olaf Martens, Maix Mayer, Florian Merkel, Erhard Monden, Christoph Sandig, Cornelia Schleime, Götz Schlötke, Erasmus Schröter, Andreas Seeliger, Heike Stephan, Gabriele Stötzer

 

Given its ideological—predominantly Marxist—character, the worldview in the GDR was oriented primarily toward the physical world. Interest in the metaphysical realm was dismissed as „bourgeois,“ backward-looking, and unprogressive.
From the late 1970s onwards, however, an increasing number of intellectuals and creative figures began to oppose these ideological blinders, the restrictions placed on one’s worldview, and the withholding of texts, knowledge, information, and ways of thinking. Because the GDR was so stifling, any vision of change centered on liberation, self-expansion, and the crossing of boundaries.

 

In the 1980s, collaborations among artists from various disciplines gave rise to currents representing an „alternative GDR photography“—a „photography from below.“ This movement was linked to subcultural developments in „art using photography,“ which frequently found an outlet in privately produced photo portfolios and semi-legal magazines. Photographers from the realm of non-conformist art—and specifically those embodying an approach that combines art with photography—remain relatively underrepresented in the public consciousness.

Their art presents aesthetic perspectives that differ fundamentally from the standard context of GDR photography: rather than using a journalistic or documentary style to point to a depicted reality, they reflect upon their own framing conditions. They define themselves through the underlying idea rather than through external form. Their modes of expression vary; they may be linked to performances and interventions. They are often characterized by an exploratory visual approach and a deliberately anti-aesthetic impulse. Sometimes they emerge solely from an unpredictable creative process, while at other times they manifest through serial structural arrangements. Anyone in the GDR who developed concepts of „art using photography“ quickly found themselves marginalized, as the all-powerful Association of Visual Artists of the GDR (VBK-DDR) provided neither criteria nor internal organizational structures for such work.

 

Artistic projects of this unconventional nature were neither evaluated by the academies nor assessed by juries. Consequently, conceptual artists were not represented within the VBK-DDR, as admission juries deemed themselves neither responsible for nor capable of evaluating such work. In this respect, „art using photography“ is essentially a phenomenon of GDR subculture—of movements that did not uphold the state or conform to the status quo.

 

Curator: Christoph Tannert