Cosmos: Agendas, Networks, Friendships

Schloss Biesdorf, 29 June – 27 September 2026

"Spaziergang am Meer von Ahrenshoop", Ingrid Goltzsche-Schwarz 1980 © Ingrid Goltzsche-Schwarz; photo: die arge lola

The exhibition at Schloss Biesdorf showcases artworks from the collection of the Centre for Art Exhibitions of the GDR (Zentrum für Kunstausstellungen der DDR or ZfK), the ifa and the Museum of Utopia and Everyday Life / Beeskow Art Archive, as well as works on loan from artists’ estates. This selection offers insights into cosmoses that reveal the remarkable diversity of the GDR’s artistic production, indicating that spaces of creative freedom found ways to flourish despite state surveillance and control. Cosmos presents artworks from this liminal realm and teases out strategies of defiance, tracing networks formed in the areas surrounding Berlin – in the shadow of official state cultural institutions. A round table that recalls the work DDR Noir by the post-reunification artist Henrike Naumann provides a central motif.

Against this backdrop, vivid images of East German creative circles begin to emerge. Whether at Charlotte Pauly’s salons in Friedrichshagen near the Müggelsee or Erika Stürmer-Alex’s Kunsthof in the Oderbruch, close to the Polish border. Even in socialist Germany, artists gathered here in nearly every decade to share space and honour artistic freedom.

Like Naumann’s furniture installations, which reference the work of her grandfather – the Socialist Realist painter Karlheinz Jakob – this exhibition draws a wide range of parallels between generations, scenes and disciplines. Next to Henrike Naumann, artists such as Wilhelm Klotzek, Alex Müller and David Polzin also explore the GDR’s complex legacy in the form of sculptures, prints and installations. They are especially concerned with a critical openness and a sense of ambiguity in art, similar to the principles Elizabeth Shaw insisted on in her work half a century earlier. The Irish caricaturist joined an artists’ colony in Kleinmachnow outside of Berlin after the Second World War and later found success as a children’s book author, holding to the principle that “The things I draw don’t need to be said”.

Otto Nagel was also known for his early attempts to resist the political instrumentalization of his artwork. From his second home in Biesdorf, the first president of the Akademie der Künste Ost and of the GDR’s Association of Visual Artists ((Verband Bildender Künstler der DDR or VBK) promoted artwork between ideologies. Although he held various political offices, Nagel stands for an ambivalence between loyalty to the system and insubordination. He used his diplomatic skills to foster exchange between East and West German artists and organised exhibitions that did not fit the art strategists’ visions. “Far removed from Berlin, but on the front lines of culture, I stood and fought” – this self-proclaimed emancipatory position on the geographical, political and artistic margins applies to nearly every actor featured in this exhibition.

In 1982, Erika Stürmer-Alex founded the Kunsthof Lietzen, which is still home to lived exchange, production and networking among artists today. Stürmer-Alex taught drawing, printmaking and collage here and offered other artists a platform away from the state’s oversight. From outside of the city, she regularly corresponded with artists friends about her worldview and her thoughts about art. Correspondences with figures such as Renate Göritz bring these networks and connections to life. “Away with the bookkeeping, give me the chaos of life! I’m against all this number crunching […] I’m against it in bold patches of strokes and colour, as chaotic as possible.”

Works from the collection of the Centre for Art Exhibitions of the GDR and the ifa – Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (Selection 12/56)

Opening: Sunday, 28 June 2026, 6 pm
Exhibition: 29 June – 27 September 2026

Featuring artworks by Tina Bara, Wolfgang E. Biedermann, Manfred Butzmann, Carlfriedrich Claus, Fritz Cremer, Wieland Förster, Dieter Goltzsche, Ingrid Goltzsche-Schwarz, Renate Göritz, René Graetz, Karl-Heinz Jakob, Wilhelm Klotzek, Therese Koppe, Gregor-Torsten Kozik (Schade), Sylvie Kürsten, Toni Florence Mau, Michael Morgner, Alex Müller, Henrike Naumann, Charlotte Elfriede Pauly, David Polzin, Nuria Quevedo, Thomas Ranft, Dagmar Ranft-Schinke, Herbert Sandberg, Elizabeth Shaw, Erika Stürmer-Alex, Hans Vent, Karla Woisnitza

Curated by Sylvie Kürsten and Susanne Weiß

The exhibition is supported by the Fonds für Ausstellungsvergütungen für bildende Künstler:innen and the Ausstellungsfonds Kommunale Galerien Berlin of the Senate Department for Culture and Community.

Cosmos: Agendas, Networks, Friendships is part of the exhibition series Making Public: On the Work and Legacy of the Centre for Art Exhibitions of the GDR.

Making Public

On the Work and Legacy of the Centre for Art Exhibitions of the GDR

The six-part exhibition series Making Public in 2026 is presented by the ifa - Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen in cooperation with the Wüstenrot Foundation. Gefördert durch den Hauptstadtkulturfonds. The exhibition series in Berlin, in cooperation with the ifa Gallery Berlin, Schloss Biesdorf, the Kunstverein Ost (KVOST), the Prater Gallery, and the Galerie im Turm, is supported by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds (HKF).

More on the GDR Centre for Art Exhibitions:

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

GDR’s Centre for Art Exhibitions and the ifa

What histories lies behind the Art Collection of the ifa?

Artistic-curatorial research on the ifa Art Collection

What has become today of the Art Collection of the GDR’s ZfK?

The artists of the ZfK

Which artists' works were collected and exhibited on behalf of the GDR?