30 years after the fall of the Berlin wall, the exhibition “Point of No Return” in the Leipzig Museum of the image is devoted to arts of the East German art of the turn of time. You have to anticipate the change, says curator Christoph Tannert.
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The German-German inflection from the point of view of the art
Upheaval in the art
The time before the fall of the Berlin wall, the break in the turning of time and the subsequent understanding of art have worked on many of the artists from the Eastern part of the country in their works. Yet there was a lack of a historical reappraisal of the Work. In the Leipzig Museum der bildenden Künste (MdbK) see the comprehensive Look at the “Point of No Return”, here’s a picture without a title by Cornelia Schleime.
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The German-German inflection from the point of view of the art
Pain in the picture
The Review reflects uncertainty and fear with a view to the political and social upheaval. In the exhibition, you can feel the pain, says Co-curator Alfred Weidinger: “Maybe it takes 30 years to gain distance and to grapple with the artists.” Trak Wendischs “tongue cutter”, formed in 1988.
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The German-German inflection from the point of view of the art
Disorientation instead of riser
The disorientation of the people formed the Leipzig-based artist Doris Ziegler in your passages-cycle, here with the image of the “Great Passage”. The break is not as a point of departure, but cold and grey, the people seem lost and unsure.
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The German-German inflection from the point of view of the art
Art on behalf of the socialist idea
On behalf of the society for German-Soviet friendship painted Norbert car Board its cycle of the “Seven pictures for the history of the Soviet Union”, here: “on the move”. The membership of the mass organisation should strengthen the sense of community of the socialist systems. The commissioned work was free of influence.
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The German-German inflection from the point of view of the art
Feeling life without the highlights
The Dresden Neustadt was since the 1970s a hoard of the GDR subculture. There, the artist Lutz Fleischer lived to the last, in July of 2019, he died. His image “Trunkenes Couple”, 1981, describes no reason, but the situation in life: The days passed, free of highlights, and ended in the pub. “The Point of No Return” is up to 3. To see the November 2019 in MdbK.
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The German-German inflection from the point of view of the art
Upheaval in the art
The time before the fall of the Berlin wall, the break in the turning of time and the subsequent understanding of art have worked on many of the artists from the Eastern part of the country in their works. Yet there was a lack of a historical reappraisal of the Work. In the Leipzig Museum der bildenden Künste (MdbK) see the comprehensive Look at the “Point of No Return”, here’s a picture without a title by Cornelia Schleime.
-
The German-German inflection from the point of view of the art
Pain in the picture
The Review reflects uncertainty and fear with a view to the political and social upheaval. In the exhibition, you can feel the pain, says Co-curator Alfred Weidinger: “Maybe it takes 30 years to gain distance and to grapple with the artists.” Trak Wendischs “tongue cutter”, formed in 1988.
-
The German-German inflection from the point of view of the art
Disorientation instead of riser
The disorientation of the people formed the Leipzig-based artist Doris Ziegler in your passages-cycle, here with the image of the “Great Passage”. The break is not as a point of departure, but cold and grey, the people seem lost and unsure.
-
The German-German inflection from the point of view of the art
Art on behalf of the socialist idea
On behalf of the society for German-Soviet friendship painted Norbert car Board its cycle of the “Seven pictures for the history of the Soviet Union”, here: “on the move”. The membership of the mass organisation should strengthen the sense of community of the socialist systems. The commissioned work was free of influence.
-
The German-German inflection from the point of view of the art
Feeling life without the highlights
The Dresden Neustadt was since the 1970s a hoard of the GDR subculture. There, the artist Lutz Fleischer lived to the last, in July of 2019, he died. His image “Trunkenes Couple”, 1981, describes no reason, but the situation in life: The days passed, free of highlights, and ended in the pub. “The Point of No Return” is up to 3. To see the November 2019 in MdbK.
DW: Mr Tannert, many of the works from the exhibition “Point of No Return” are previously never been shown publicly, and come from private collections. How have you encountered it and what are the criteria you have selected the pictures and sculptures?
Christoph Tannert: Paul Kaiser (Director of the Dresden Institute for cultural studies, editor’s note. d. Red.) and I have made the selection based on the best of our knowledge. We are dealing since long time with the developments in Eastern Germany. I am Born in 1955, and I have visited many of the artists in the 1970s and 1980s, in their studios and I know the factory production first-Hand. It has wondered after the turn, that many of the works have not been in the Public eye. The Bulk of the Work has not been present, we found according to our Research, a large number of works that have to do with our topic: the Situation in the 1980s in the GDR, the hopes for change, the collapse, the Revolution, and the transient Moment of change.
Christoph Tannert, one of the curators of the exhibition “Point of No Return”
How do you explain that the interest in this art was after the turning point is so low, and it took three decades for these works were compiled in an exhibition together?
The artists have used a certain amount of time, in the new Situation to navigate. Many have taken second working conditions, have otherwise attempted to earn money, others have traveled or have researched. In addition, a variety of art historians from West Germany in the GDR and occupied the top positions. The impossible has, that the East Germans were able to come up with their own life stories in the Public. This condition has stopped until today, only the call to change is much stronger than it was then.
Some artists were quite in demand, others have gone unheeded. Can you explain?
The wood-plastic “doubt” by Hans Scheib and the image of “Back to the future” of Wolfram Adalbert Scheffler
In the GDR, there were 6000 members in the GDR-artists Association, which also had a monitoring function. Of these 6,000 persons, about 2000 artists. The number of those who would have been after the turn, still present, is still very small. All have worked on. Who is gone before the turn of the century in the West, could develop in a second life trial also different in Public and present than those who remained in the GDR. And younger artists have just completed at the end of the GDR, their high-school educations, were able to start their careers in the new Germany: Neo Rauch, Eberhard Havekost, Frank Nitsche, Thomas Scheibitz.
What was the significance of the arts for peaceful Revolution?
Since the Expatriation of singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann (1976, editor’s note. d. Red.) artists from spreads again and again with your images, sculptures, films, and songs, the hope for change. You have to anticipate the change and to the possibility sank in that things change. This is a lengthy process, therefore we show also pictures from the 1970s and 1980s, wearing that hope to an end. The Leipzig-based artist Doris Ziegler has painted in your passages-cycle as early as 1988, several images that show this impossibility in the freedom move, and this collapsing state as a dull, gray bell, which is above the individual. She has previously seen, what we know of the Monday demonstrations, human chains, and candle.
Prophetic: “the Great Passage” from the passages in the cycle of the Leipzig painter Doris Ziegler
Not all artists have opposed the latter, there were also state-compliant art. As appears in the exhibition?
We will show in the exhibition, works by more than 100 artists from several generations, a total of about 300 works. Show all very subjective perspectives of the artist, on the Situation in the GDR, on the change and look back at the time of the GDR. We show the positions of the state are rather remote, but also artists who have been compliant, such as Willi Sitte, Wolfgang Mattheuer. Custom of the working class resented the fact that they threw in an ostrich-style capitalism in the throat. The exhibition is a kaleidoscope of different life experiences.
Christoph Tannert, 1955 born in Leipzig, is the Artistic Director and managing Director at the künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, and one of three curators of the exhibition “Point of No Return”, up to 3. November 2019 at the Museum of fine arts in Leipzig.
The interview was conducted by Torsten Landsberg.