Coda: Reenacting an Exhibition

How does music influence visual art? Is it possible to depict sound through ink on paper? Can an etching be interpreted as dance? These are some of the questions explored in the exhibition Coda: Reenacting an Exhibition draws on the exhibition Musik in der bildenden Kunst der DDR (Music in visual art in the GDR), which was conceived in the early 1980s by Hans-Jörg Schirmbeck, “exhibition commissioner” at the Centre for Art Exhibitions of the GDR (Zentrum für Kunstausstellungen der DDR or ZfK). The original show featured portraits of musicians, abstract notations and homages to famous composers. As part of the programme at the ZfK’s Neue Berliner Galerie im Alten Museum in 1985, weekly concerts were held to activate the exhibition. In the following years, the exhibition travelled to Duisburg as well as to Kuwait during international music conventions. Horst Bartnig, Renate Göritz, Lutz Hirschmann, Heinz Plank, Hans Ticha, Erika Stürmer-Alex and many other artists depicted composers, musicians and music itself in drawings, etchings, paintings and collages. From Beethoven to Pink Floyd, from Hanns Eisler to Jimi Hendrix to an anonymous singer of German Schlager, numerous icons and genres can be found in the ZfK collection today. Music offered GDR artists a degree of artistic freedom, a playing field that grew into an independent, recognised cultural form despite state restrictions. At the same time, the artists also turned to abstraction to invent their own music on paper – expanding on challenges to the traditional notational system that went back to the 1960s.

The decision to show artworks exclusively from the ZfK’s inventory provides a framework for this curatorial restaging at KVOST. After over thirty years at the depot in Stuttgart, these works now encounter one another alongside documents such as the exhibition concept, catalogues, newspaper clippings, photos and media reportages that combine to form a historical image of this experimental and intermedial project. The title Coda refers to the musical term denoting the final section of a piece of music and articulates a moment of reflection that is extended in the new exhibition – which not so much a reconstruction as it is a “reenactment” of the original show’s different versions. The artworks are arranged chronologically from 1963 to 1988. This hang offers insights into the development of art in the GDR, from concrete Realism to an abstraction inspired by contemporary melodies. 

The original exhibition was accompanied by a musical programme that spanned baroque, Neue Musik, jazz and popular songs. KVOST plans to cooperate with the School of Music Hanns Eisler Berlin to enhance the exhibition with concerts – not as a recreation of the original programme, but as a reinterpretation.

Opening: Friday, 3 July 2026, 6 pm
Exhibition: 4 July – 30 August 2026

Featuring works by Bernd Bankroth, Horst Bartnig, Wolfgang E. Biedermann, Dieter Bock, Dietrich Burger, Hartwig Ebersbach, Dieter Goltzsche, Renate Göritz, Jürgen Haufe, Rainer Herold, Karl-Georg Hirsch, Lutz Hirschmann, Veit Hofmann, Gerhard Kettner, Ingo Kirchner, Wolfgang Mattheuer, Alfred T. Mörstedt, Rolf Münzner, Charlotte Elfriede Pauly, Heinz Plank, Herbert Sandberg, Erika Stürmer-Alex, Hans Ticha, Andreas Wachter, Claus Weidensdorfer, Karla Woisnitza, Axel Wunsch

Curated by Thibaut de Ruyter, after a concept by Hans-Jörg Schirmbeck

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).