Making Public: On the Work and Legacy of the Centre for Art Exhibitions of the GDR.
An exhibition project presented by the ifa - Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen in cooperation with the Wüstenrot Foundation.
Insights into the work areas of the Art Department and the history of the art collection at ifa
Productive Unrest: Art, the public and alternative culture in the field of tension of the IX. and X. Art Exhibition of the GDR in the 80s
As in many places, the 1980s in Dresden were a turbulent and restless period, full of contradictions, conflicts and new beginnings. Which forms of artistic expression gained a foothold, and of which quality were the new relationships which emerged between the arts and their audience, both within and beyond state control? The exhibition Productive Unrest takes a closer look at selected works of art, photography and alternative culture from this period, which seem to resonate the emerging social changes.
The GDR Centre for Art Exhibitions (ZfK)
Founded in 1973 as a state institution, the Center for Art (ZfK) played a key role in shaping cultural exchange in the GDR during its 17 years of activity. After its dissolution, the graphic art part of the collection was transferred to the ifa. The processing of this unique inventory within the ifa art collection makes the institutional structures of East German (foreign) cultural policy visible and lets contemporary witnesses speak.
Artistic-Curatorial Research on the ifa Art Collection
From the “Weltreise” to the “Traces of Interest”. Since 2013, the ifa has been exploring its own art collection and, in particular, the 10,000 works of graphic art from the GDR Centre for Art Exhibitions it contains, in three large-scale exhibition projects.
Artists from the Collection of the GDR Centre for Art Exhibitions
An examination of the works from the collection of the Center for Art Exhibitions shows continuities and ruptures as well as influences and relationships that make it clear that artists in the GDR not only worked in accordance with the system or conformed to it, but also found their place in the in-between against the odds. The ifa presents eleven of the artists behind this art in particular.
