Artistic-Curatorial Research on the ifa Art Collection

Since 2020, with the exhibition series “Out of the Box”, the ifa Galleries in Berlin and Stuttgart have structured dialogical encounters between contemporary artists and selected works from the ifa Art Collection. “Out of the Box” is thus to be interpreted literally: works held in the Collection are taken out of their storage boxes to form part of an artistic-curatorial re-assessment.  

The historical peculiarities and structures of the Art Collection, and the specific configuration arising from the fact that ifa took over guardianship of a body of over 10 000 graphic art works from the GDR Centre for Art Exhibitions (ZfK), form the starting point for the exhibition projects presented here. Since the late 1990s, the works collected in the course of both institutions‘ prior exhibition activities have lain side by side in Stuttgart. 

Our artistic-curatorial re-assessment of the Collections is meant to facilitate contemporary access to them, ask new and critical questions, and make unconventional and humorous insights into our inventory possible. 

The online exhibition Going Public presents 40 artists from the graphic art collection of the ZfK. This collection includes works on paper, such as watercolours, hand drawings in ink or other pigments, graphic prints in the form of lithography or etchings, small-scale sculpture, portfolios, and artist books. 

The majority of the artists selected for the exhibition – whose works were shown in exhibitions of the ZfK in East Germany and around the world – can be associated with an art scene that developed and employed minimalist, abstract, critical-realist, neo-expressionist, and experimental techniques, as well as subversive approaches and methods. The exhibition also includes work, however, that gave preference to realist, figurative, and more popular subjects. Our selection thus demonstrates that art in the GDR, while stemming from common art-historical developments and traditions, had a multi-faceted influence on society. It was tied in to trends and styles that transcended any one political system and benefitted from an international network. 

This exhibition was developed as a joint project of the ifa and the Wüstenrot Stiftung and was curated by Susanne Weiß. It is based on the progress of digitalization through 2020, when circa a quarter of the total inventory had been saved to our databank.

The ifa Gallery Berlin initiated in 2022 the three-part artistic-curatorial research and exhibition project Spheres of Interest, Chains of Interest and Traces of Interest, in which the artists Isaac Chong Wai, Lizza May David, Wilhelm Klotzek, Ofri Lapid, Adrien Missika, and Gitte Villesen address the layers and histories of the ifa Art Collection. In these exhibitions, the artists reflect upon the mission and context of the ifa’s collecting and exhibition practice and thus enable visitors to see the ifa’s collection of art from the former East and West Germanies from new perspectives.

“Thanks to the clever curatorial approach and an effective design for the interdisciplinary exhibition parcours, the bold mixture of styles never disintegrates into randomness. The very readable and entertaining texts, with ideas and information about the artists‘ dialogical working processes, also make a difference.”
– Nolte, Michaela. "Schau in der Ifa-Galerie Berlin: Ein Vorbild für die Documenta“. Der Tagesspiegel Online, 27.07.2022. Tagesspiegel, www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/ein-vorbild-fur-die-documenta-8150197.html.

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In the context of closing festivities for the exhibition Chains of Interest, a symposium entitled Spurenlesen – Zugänge zur Geschichte und Aktualität des ifa-Kunstbestandes (Reading Traces – Ways of Access to the History and Contemporary Relevance of the ifa Art Collection) took place in the Polygon of the ifa Gallery Berlin.

At this conference, Nina Bingel spoke about the practice of touring exhibitions, Maximilian Bauer about the digitalization of 100 works from the ZfK Collection on the digital platform Agora, and Ellen Strittmatter about the future of the ifa Art Collection. Peter Hartmann and Hans-Jörg Schirmbeck spoke with Pauline Hohn (Art in Networks, TU Dresden/SPK) about their work as senior staff members of the ZfK. Matthias Flügge and Matthias Winzen presented the works selected from the ifa Collection for the ifa exhibition they curated under the title of Weltreise (A trip around the world). Further, An Paenhuysen and Ulli Grötz, commissioned by the ifa for communications work, reported on their experience with the ifa touring exhibition of Rosemarie Trockel.

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Traces of Interest is the third part of ifa‘s artistic-curatorial exploration – the exhibition brings together both critical and humorous interrogations and perspectives. These touch upon crucial moments of our contemporary experience and draw out collective memories as well as moments of action. The reclining figure is a classical motif of sculpture. In this show, three “reclining figures” face off: a sculpture by Heinrich Apel from the collection of the ZfK, re-exhibited here for the first time in 30 years; a wooden figure by the autodidact Erich Bödeker from the ifa touring exhibition Naïve Art; and a reclining figure quietly enjoying a cigarette by Wilhelm Klotzek.

”roar”, “shred”, “chasten”, “scratch”

Günther Uecker brought together 55 such words in 1992 as a reaction to the radical right-wing attacks perpetrated in Rostock-Lichtenhagen. Silke Arning reported on April 2, 2024, for the radio station SWR on the exhibition Traces of Interest in the ifa Gallery Stuttgart.

Arning, Silke. “Ifa-Ausstellung Stuttgart: “Out of the Box. Traces of Interest”.” SWR Kultur am Mittag. SWR Kultur, 02.04.2024, www.swr.de/swrkultur/kunst-und-ausstellung/ifa-ausstellung-stuttgart-out-of-the-box-traces-of-interest-100.html.

Time: 4 min.

In 2015, Elke aus dem Moore (Director of ifa’s Fine Arts Section from 2008 through 2018) initiated the research-based touring exhibition Travelling the World at the ifa. Its curators Matthias Flügge and Matthias Winzen investigated the unique Collection over a period of more than two years. With their selection of over 400 works, they produce a new art-historical narrative on the art of the former East and West Germanies.

For Travelling the World, the curators also studied the collection of the ZfK. Matthias Flügge, in his text “The ifa and Mutual Influences between East and West German Art”, asks what reasons there are for the differences that persist, even today, in the perception of East German art by West Germans and vice versa. He describes a process by which the individual biography of any given artist was placed in the foreground, rather than his or her work. Artistic judgments stemmed more or less directly from the artist’s relationship to the state. Regardless of artistic qualities, closeness or distance to the state apparatus was viewed as a conscious political positioning and, for the sake of simplicity, as tantamount to support or resistance. Art produced in the GDR—appreciated in the West at the time almost exclusively by reference to the framework of East Germany’s art export policies, defined by ideological considerations (though also with a view to bringing in foreign currencies)—found it difficult to re-define its place in the network of European aesthetic practice. The generation born after the Wall was built had it easier, for the points of contact were more evident: after all, it was the force of that generation that had radically renounced the doctrines of the GDR’s official art as early as the mid-1980s. 

Flügge, Matthias. “Der deutsch-deutsche Kunstaustausch und das ifa” (The ifa and Mutual Influences between East and West German Art), in: ifa, Elke aus dem Moore, Matthias Flügge and Matthias Winzen, (Eds.): Weltreise. Kunst aus Deutschland unterwegs. Werke aus dem Kunstbestand des ifa 1949–heute (Travelling the World. Art from Germany.  Artworks from the ifa Collection 1949 to the Present), Heidelberg Berlin 2013, pp. 25–32.

Early exhibitions of the ifa dealing with works it took over from the Collection of the ZfK:

• Gerhard Altenbourg. Arbeiten aus den Jahren [Works from the years] 1947–1989 (1992–2005) 

• Hermann Glöckner. Werke [Works] 1909–1985 (1993–2006) 

• Michael Morgner (1993–2000)

The page “Artistic-curatorial research into the ifa Art Collection” was made possible through a project in cooperation with the Wüstenrot Stiftung. Edited by: Susanne Weiß (Curator of the Art Collection, ifa) in collaboration with Tina Weingardt (Collection Manager, ifa) and Paulinus Burger (research assistant, ifa). Proof-reading: Karolin Nedelmann. Translation: Darrell Wilkins.