The GDR Centre for Art Exhibitions

… and then we’d be called the "Centre for Art Exhibitions". I think we could live quite well with that name. From a substantive point of view, of course, there remains the question: What are we going to show now? I’m of the opinion that in the last four, five years, in the framework of the Treaty on Culture, we have shown some exhibitions, sure, but nowhere near enough to synthesize and really process the developments in fine art over the past forty years. We need a bunch more years to really make known those forty years of development in our art in its full breadth and diversity – and including its wrong turns. Every week, we get numerous requests, from well beyond the borders of the Federal Republic of Germany, for exhibition exchanges. The fall of the Wall eliminated any psychological barrier to cooperations. A lot of people want to expand their understanding of the GDR beyond the purely political dimension, and this process is probably going to last another decade.

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Weren’t there also certain taboos with the import of art exhibitions, too, prior to the 9th of  November?

‎We carried out our exhibition exchanges on the basis of treaties on culture and work plans. These treaties and work plans were negotiated and agreed upon on the political level. In the last few years, we succeeded in contributing our wishes and suggestions to the planning, but they were implemented only in part, given the structures then in place. There were, to be sure, restrictions coming from our side, but with our partners, too, in West Germany and beyond, there were certain preconceived notions about what art from their countries they wanted to show in the GDR. There were exclusions and taboos on both sides. One taboo, for example, was that artists who had defected from the GDR were not to be shown within the framework of treaties on culture. There were, however, exceptions to the rule.

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Who finances the Centre for Art Exhibitions?

The Ministry of Culture. We were an institution that had developed, from a relatively small predecessor institution, into a legally independent organisation in 1973, when the practice of cultural exchanges negotiated by the state had taken on a certain magnitude. We get our budget from the Ministry of Culture and we do not know right know whether that will continue to be the case.

I don’t think we should stay fixated on the Ministry of Culture, because I know from conversations with my colleagues in West Germany and West Berlin that there are any number of possibilities for the financing of public institutions. For the partners of this institution, however, it is crucial that the political will to promote art within the framework of exhibition exchanges remains intact. If the political will is there, the modalities of financing it will be found.

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In what ways will the Centre change as a result of setting up a federal system in the GDR?

‎We will definitely have to make a shift in that we offer ourselves as partner to whatever exhibition agencies are established at the provincial level of the German Länder – whether that means realising certain projects jointly with them, or on commission from them. We have already done things like that in the past. Our colleagues outside Berlin were interested in cooperations like that if for no other reason then because they just did not have the budget to carry out such projects on their own. In the end, it’s about presenting exhibitions; the visitor is not interested in the organisation behind it all. An exhibition that is shown in his neighbourhood is going to be more attractive to him than one that he has to travel to see.

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‎To what extent have you already been in touch with potential sponsors?

‎I have no reservations with regard to sponsors and getting their support for any particular project. But that should not mean that the state shirks from its responsibility to finance culture, just because there are sponsors there. What we would want is an environment of mutual stimulation. Given the arrangements prevalent in the FRG right now, where you have 97% public funding and 3% private sponsors, there is no reason to expect that the proportion is going to be any different here. Plus here, there is the additional consideration that you just don’t have the same economic powerhouses. Nevertheless, we did find sponsors for the GDR’s contribution to the Biennale in Venice – which just goes to show you that we have no fear of contact.

Wulffen, Thomas, and Polak, Wolfgang. "Keine Berührungsängste" (No Fear of Contact). Bilder aus der DDR (Pictures from the GDR). In: Kunstforum International, Volume 109, 1990, p. 158.

They pled for maintaining the Centre for Art Exhibitions and their posts as staff-members. Many of them viewed the liquidation of the ZfK as a "hostile takeover" by the Stuttgart-based ifa, making a merger of equals between the two institutions impossible.[6] In the new federal budget, however, there were no funds for continuing to employ the circa 80 employees of the ZfK. Moreover, the ifa was critical of certain parts of the work of the ZfK, above all the influence it assumed the latter institution had exerted as a result of the restrictive cultural policy of the SED[7] and through the Ministry for State Security (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, or Stasi).[8] The background to this controversy was no doubt the generally heated debate over the value of art from the GDR, in light of the restricted freedom of artistic expression and the massive emigration or defection of artists prior to 1989. The repercussions of this controversy, often dubbed the "Iconoclastic Controversy of East and West Germany", continue to be felt today.

Despite the protests and concomitant critical reporting on the event in East German media, the ZfK was dissolved on December 31, 1990. A small group of former ZfK staff members had previously taken the initiative of establishing a private Society for Art Exhibitions (Gesellschaft für Kunstausstellungen) as a transitional solution. It was hoped that this company could take over parts of the mission and some of the staff from the ZfK on the basis of an initial capital provided by the GDR Ministry of Culture and become a kind of consulting firm for international art exhibitions. The concept, however, proved not to be economically viable, so the Society for Art Exhibitions was ultimately able to meet only those prior commitments made by the ZfK relative to events in the period immediately following 1990. The staff of the ZfK symbolically buried their Centre for Art Exhibitions and were then – in some cases following protracted and unsuccessful labour law litigation – for the most part dismissed into professional precarity.[9]

Only a few staff members were re-hired by the ifa, when it established a new branch of the ifa Gallery in facilities formerly belonging to the ZfK. As for the art collection of the ZfK, the works on paper, the small-scale sculptures, and the library of catalogues were conveyed to the ifa warehouse.[10] Other works from the inventory were given to municipal or regional museums in the new (eastern) Bundesländer – for instance, to what is today the Brandenburgisches Landesmuseum für moderne Kunst in Cottbus and Frankfurt (Oder) and the Kunsthalle Rostock.[11]
An insight into the process of winding up the ZfK can be obtained, among other ways, by reviewing the files in the holdings of the FRG Archives (Bundesarchiv) and the Political Archives (Politisches Archiv) of the German Foreign Service (Auswärtiges Amt); but also through discussions with the people who experienced the turbulence of the years 1989/90 in the milieu of the ZfK and ifa first-hand. Precisely in the context of these socially and politically complex processes of transformation during the "years of upheaval" (Wendejahre), the history of the ZfK and ifa continue to be interpreted and appreciated in highly divergent ways. By submitting its own past to a process of constant re-evaluation, the ifa hopes to shed light on all these different perspectives and create a space for discussion about the ways in which culture was represented abroad by the historically divided, then re-unified, Germany.

[1] Polak, Wolfgang. "15 Jahre Zentrum für Kunstausstellungen der DDR – Bilanz und Ausblick" (15 Years of the the GDR Centre for Art Exhibitions – An Assessment and a Look at the Future), in: Mitteilungen 9 / Zentrum für Kunstausstellungen der DDR, published by the GDR Centre for Art Exhibitions – Publicity Department, 1978, pp.  4–6.

[2] Schirmbeck, Hans-Jörg. "Das Zentrum für Kunstausstellungen der DDR. Internationale Kunstausstellungen im Staatsauftrag und gegen das provinzielle Denken der offiziellen DDR-Kunstpolitik" (The GDR Centre for Art Exhibitions. International art exhibitions under the aegis of the state and in spite of the provincial thinking of official GDR art policy), transcript of a lecture presented at the Max Lingner Stiftung, 2023, p. 2, 23.

[3] See "Artikel 35 Kultur" (Article 35 - Culture) of the Reunification Treaty of 31.08.1990 (BGBl. 1990 II p. 889), last amended in §11 of the Regulation (Verordnung) of 15.08.2022 (BGBl. I p. 1401).

[4] See the history of the ifa: Die Geschichte des Instituts für Auslandsbeziehungen – ifa

[5] See Anweisung zur Auflösung des ZfK durch den Minister für Kultur Herbert Schirmer (Instructions for liquidation of the ZfK by the Minister for Culture Herbert Schirmer), in: Bundesarchiv, Berlin, BArch DR 1/91041.

[6] See Darstellung der Auflösung des ZfK in den Akten der Arbeitsrechtsstreite der ehemaligen ZfK-Mitarbeitenden (Portrayal of the liquidation of the ZfK in the record of the labor-law suits filed by former employees of the ZfK), 1991, Bundesarchiv Berlin, BArch DR1/91238.

[7] Flügge, Matthias. "Der deutsch-deutsche Kunstaustausch und das ifa" (The ifa and mutual exchanges between East and West German art), in: Weltreise: Kunst aus Deutschland unterwegs. Werke aus dem Kunstbestand des ifa 1949–heute (A trip around the world. Art from Germany on tour. Works from the Art Collection of the ifa, 1949–today), published by the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, Heidelberg 2013, pp. 25–32.

[8] Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen e.V., Letter to State Secretary Udo Bartsch (GDR Ministery of Culture), 6.7.1990, Bundesarchiv Berlin, BArch DR/1/19417.

[9] See ifa an das Auswärtige Amt (Letter from ifa to the FRG Foreign Service), Referat 602, VLR Dr. Körting, Fax of 2.11.90, Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes, B 95 ZA – 201271.

[10] Interview of the authors with Wolfgang Polak, last Director of the ZfK, on 20.09.2023.

[11] Flügge 2013 (see FN 6 above) and Interview of the authors with Barbara Barsch, Department Director of the Section for Fine Arts (Referatsleiterin der Abteilung Bildende Kunst) in the GDR Ministry of Culture from May to December 1990, and Director of the ifa Gallery Berlin from 1991 on 8.11.2023.

[12] Protocol of the joint consultation of representatives of certain museums and the ZfK on 27.11.1990, Bundesarchiv, Berlin, BArch DR1/90415.

were shown, including those dispatched to countries all over the world and those brought from abroad to the GDR, in exchange. These exhibitions involved an estimated total of ca. 100 000 art works, which were processed in the various departments of the ZfK. In 1978, for instance, there were more than 130 exhibitions, while more than 130 000 visitors saw the exhibitions of the ZfK in various cities of the GDR – that is, not just in Berlin, but also in Rostock, Dresden, Erfurt, and Leipzig.

The art works sent abroad or transported to the GDR were seen, according to the statistics, by ca. 10 million visitors in exhibitions mounted worldwide by the ZfK in the 1970s and 1980s. On average, the Centre mounted, transported, and received between 55 and 80 exhibitions a year.

Fine arts from the GDR for export

In contrast to the GDR State Agency for Art Trading (Staatlicher Kunsthandel), which was founded simultaneously with the ZfK, the exhibition exchanges of the ZfK were always negotiated within the framework of treaties on culture signed with the countries in question. Those treaties stipulated the required modalities, particularly with regard to financing. Diplomatic agreements with the agency’s foreign partners were negotiated by the foreign service officers responsible for the relevant country (Länderreferenten) in the Ministry of Culture (Ministerium für Kultur, MfK) via the GDR embassies abroad.

In 1978, three quarters of the Centre’s export and import exhibitions involved East European countries or the GDR’s allies in Africa (Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe), Asia (India, Pakistan, Nepal, Vietnam, Cambodia, Syria, Iraq), and Latin America (Cuba, Nicaragua, Chile, Peru, etc.).

In the 1980s, its exchanges with West European countries expanded dramatically. In 1987, six exhibitions were shown in the FRG alone. Other exhibitions went to Italy, the Netherlands, the countries of Scandinavia, Great Britain, and the USA. In the mid-1980s, the number of exhibitions sent abroad to West European countries lies well above those sent to the East European region.

The GDR’s participation in documenta 6 under the sign of détente

An enormous step forward towards cultural-political exchange with the "Western Hemisphere" ensued from the GDR’s participation in documenta 6 in 1977. The countries of the Eastern Bloc had refused to participate in 1972. In light of this, Documenta curator Manfred Schneckenburger made a clever strategic decision in inviting, for the first time, artists representing the "official" art of the GDR. In a way, that constituted a "contradictio in adjecto", since Kassel, in accordance with the will of its founders in 1955, was meant to be a bastion of freedom for art, a pole of antithesis that distanced itself from the “Formalism Debates” and  rejected the normative aesthetics of "Socialist Realism" in the East. In 1977, that is, 20 years later, it was time to critically re-assess this concept. Five years earlier, Harald Szeemann, curator of the 1972 documenta 5, had already tried to show art from the GDR and Eastern Europe under the rubric of "Parallel Worlds of Images". This attempt, however, had failed, owing to resistance from Budapest, Prague, Sophia, and East Berlin. 

Manfred Schneckenburger’s selection of work by the painters Bernhard Heisig, Wolfgang Mattheuer, Willi Sitte, and Werner Tübke was a success. Willi Sitte enhanced the selection of artists by adding sculptures of Fritz Cremer and Jo Jastram.[1]

West German artists protested against being shown next to artists from the GDR

Schneckenburger’s concept of juxtaposing figurative painting from the East and the West did not quite work as planned, however, because Georg Baselitz and Markus Lüpertz, whose works were to be shown right next to those of artists from the GDR, withdrew their paintings. On June 22, 1977, moreover, the two artists distributed flyers at a press conference stating that they would not participate in the festival in protest against the "disproportionate balance in favour of artists representing the GDR". Other exiles from the GDR regime protested, as well. The majority of visitors, however, viewed the works from the GDR on display with interest and goodwill.

Mattheuer’s Freundlicher Besuch im Braunkohlenrevier (Friendly Visit to the Lignite Mining District) from 1974 was a very good picture, which also possessed an iconographically quite legible criticism of the SED’s environmental policy. Mattheuer’s Übermütiger Sisyphos und die Seinen (The Hubris of Sisyphus and his People, 1976), like Bernhard Heisig’s Ikarus (Icarus, 1973), drew upon Greek mythology to seek the "difficulties of seeking truth". Even Willi Sitte showed, besides some ideologically heavy-handed large-format pictures, his orgiastic Strandszenen mit Sonnenfinsternis (Beach Scenes with Solar Eclipse, 1974), which presented a very different side of "Socialist man".[2]

Looking back from today’s perspective at documenta 6, the participation of artists from the GDR presents a picture far more complex than was appreciated at the time. Many of those who were invited, including Alexander Kluge, Imi Knoebel, Sigmar Polke, Klaus Staeck, and Günther Uecker, while coming from the East, could with good reason be viewed as "artists from the West".

A. R. Penck, who may well be the only truly dissident artist of the GDR, was nominated for documenta 6, but was not permitted to participate. It is highly probable that a threat was made to the effect that, if A. R. Penck was included in the show, the entire GDR delegation would go home again on the spot, with all its works.

"After 1989, numerous exhibitions were mounted with works of artists described as 'dissidents' or 'conformists' or 'servants of the state'. Just how friable, contradictory, and often misleading these labels are, however, was already evident during documenta 6. Judgments were made, in which the aesthetic qualities of the art works were often disregarded entirely. This procedure has not entirely run its course even today." [3]

Treaties on Culture

For the cause of international artistic exchange, however, the GDR’s participation in the documenta was a pioneering step. From that point on, new horizons opened up that had been quite invisible before. Treaties on culture are agreements under international law, which govern the international cultural interactions of two or more states. Such bilateral treaties came to be the most important instrument of global, foreign cultural policy. They aim, among other things, “to safeguard educational and cultural-political interests, to disseminate a contemporary and realistic image of the states involved, to avoid conflicts through better mutual understanding, and within the EU, to better [regulate and promote] the integration of Europe”[4]. The main focus of these agreements was, inter alia, facilitating cooperation among universities; fostering exchange among scientists, libraries, and centres of information; organizing international symposia; and sponsoring exhibitions and artists. Sponsoring foreign residencies of scholars and artists in the GDR’s various partner countries, with a view to improving cultural understanding, became one of the most important parts of the ZfK’s work.[5]

Attention and appreciation of art from the GDR in Western Europe and the USA

As early as the 1970s, exhibitions were mounted in Great Britain. In 1975, for instance, six graphic artists from the GDR were shown in London. The first real sensation, however, was the 1984 exhibition Tradition und Neuerertum – Zeitgenössische Kunst aus der DDR (Tradition and Innovation – Contemporary Art from the GDR), which was shown there in numerous cities with astonishing success. Another highlight was the 1986 solo exhibition of stage designer Dietrich Kaufmann.

Increasingly, exhibitions were organised in Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, with works of Werner Tübke, Bernhard Heisig, and Hans Theo Richter. A large group exhibition with several artists from the GDR was mounted in Leuven, Belgium, and Brecht in der Grafik der DDR (Brecht in the Graphic Art of the GDR) was shown in Luxembourg. In Japan, the GDR presented a large-scale and contemporary cross-section of its art for the first time in 1989/90. This exhibition, called Zeitzeichen – Malerei und Grafik aus der DDR (Signs of the Times – Painting and Graphic Art from the GDR) was comprised primarily of works from the 1970s and 1980s. Including artists from the older, middle-aged, and younger generations, it aimed to present an “unvarnished” picture of the GDR’s contemporary art scene. A list of the artists represented in this show is tantamount to a “Who՚s Who” of the art of the GDR. Among them were: Lothar Böhme, Hartwig Ebersbach, Hubertus Giebe, Clemens Gröszer, Angela Hampel, Bernhard Heisig, Johannes Heisig, Walter Libuda, Wolfgang Mattheuer, Harald Metzkes, Uwe Pfeifer, Willi Sitte, Heinrich Tessmer, Max Uhlig, Trak Wendisch, Doris Ziegler, Gerhard Altenbourg, Carlfriedrich Claus, Dieter Goltzsche, Joachim John, Michael Morgner, Rolf Münzner, Wolfgang Petrowsky, Nuria Quevedo, Werner Tübke, Claus Weidensdorfer, and Baldwin Zettl.

As in Great Britain and Japan, the first large-scale exhibition in the USA, entitled 12 Künstler aus der DDR (12 Artists from the GDR) and likewise mounted 1989/90, garnered widespread attention and appreciation. And no wonder: it presented to an American public in Cambridge, Los Angeles, and Ann Arbor an unexpected view of art in the GDR. This show included work by artists such as Gerhard Altenbourg, Carlfriedrich Claus, Sighard Gille, Bernhard Heisig, Walter Libuda, Michael Morgner, Willi Sitte, Wolfgang Smy, Max Uhlig, and Thomas Ziegler. The fact that the Wall was opened at almost the same time, on November 9, 1989, no doubt added a touch of urgency to the public’s attention and curiosity about the show.

The GDR Centre for Art Exhibitions – whereby the tag “GDR” had been dropped – was dissolved by law.

In the staff assembly of the GDR’s Ministry of Culture (Ministerium für Kultur, MfK) on September 20, 1990, it was resolved, in connection with the dissolution of the MfK and all dependent institutions, to dissolve the Centre for Art Exhibitions, too, with effect as of December 31, 1990. The ZfK’s Art Collection, archive of posters, and library of catalogues were to be entrusted to the care of the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa). Likewise, the premises of the ZfK were henceforth to be placed at the disposition of the ifa. The employees of the ZfK were granted the opportunity to apply for a position at the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen in hopes of being hired. The physical inventories of the Collection, Archives, and Library remained, for the time being, in their accustomed rooms.

The holdings of the Collection included both art works that were formally the property of the State Fund for Culture (Stiftung Kulturfonds) and such as were directly acquired by the ZfK from the resources of its own budget. Prior to liquidation of the ZfK, in December 1990, a selected number of works of painting and sculpture were transferred, in consultation with the State Fund for Culture, to museums and collections in Berlin and the new (Eastern) Bundesländern.

Art as ambassador of an artistic nation

In his essay Kunst als Botschafterin einer künstlichen Nation (Art as ambassador of an artistic nation), Christian Saehrendt sums up by asking the questions: "Did the international exchange of culture contribute to sustaining the GDR – to extending its life? Was art an effective weapon in the confrontation between systems of government? What impact did art from the GDR have in the countries of the Western world? Was it a successful propaganda coup, that the GDR was represented at the Biennale? Did appearances, such as those in Kassel or Venice, enhance the standing of the GDR, perhaps even extend the life of the SED regime?"[6]

Looking at the results, it is impossible to conclude either that the propaganda of Socialist Realism or the repeatedly diluted concept of the "breadth and diversity" of East German art benefitted the GDR politically. And precisely those exhibitions of art from the GDR shown abroad that were best from a qualitative perspective achieved, in some circumstances, the very opposite of a positive effect as propaganda.

Hans-Jörg Schirmbeck, transcript of a lecture presented at the Max Lingner Stiftung, Berlin, on May 10, 2023.

[1] Kühne, Andreas. "Die Freiheit und ihre Grenzen. Die Documenta 6 und die DDR-Kunst" (Freedom and its limits. Documenta 6 and art from the GDR), in: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 20.6.2021, http://www.sz.de/1.5318958.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Lindner, Sebastian. "Mauerblümchen Kulturabkommen" (A Flower on the Wall: Treaties on Culture), 18.5.2011, in: Deutschland Archiv, https://www.bpb.de/themen/deutschlandarchiv/53911/mauerbluemchen-kulturabkommen/.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Saehrendt, Christian. Kunst als Botschafter einer künstlichen Nation. Studien zur Rolle der bildenden Kunst in der Auswärtigen Kulturpolitik der DDR (Art as ambassador of an artistic nation. Studies on the role of the fine arts in the cultural foreign policy of the GDR), Stuttgart 2009.