Cosmos: Agendas, Networks, Friendships

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.”