The six-part exhibition series Making Public is a cooperation of the ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen with the Kunsthaus Dresden and five Berlin institutions. The comprehensive research project examines the work and legacy of the Centre for Art Exhibitions of the GDR (Zentrum für Kunstausstellungen der DDR or ZfK).

An institution that, to date, has received little attention, the ZfK played a unique role in the German Democratic Republic’s (GDR) artworld – in part because it was under the authority of the Ministry of Culture and developed its programme in accordance with the state’s cultural policy agenda, and in part because it was established to improve East Germany’s standing abroad and promote cultural exchange around the world.

Founded in 1973, the institution was marked by a new liberal spirit of “breadth and diversity” in cultural policy – an attitude also reflected in its collection of artworks, which included an assortment of prints transferred to the ifa in 1991. After thirty years in relative obscurity, the ZfK’s collection now constitutes the core of the six exhibition projects presented here. The artworks were housed either in portfolios of the GDR’s Association of Visual Artists (Verband Bildender Künstler der DDR or VBK) or were acquired to be shown in specific exhibitions. In this sense, the ZfK functioned both as patron and gatekeeper. It showcased international art within the GDR, and, more frequently, presented artwork from the GDR abroad. The institution offered artists opportunities to travel to destinations significant to East German cultural policy and featured the resulting work in exhibitions.

The ifa has been researching the ZfK’s work and history in cooperation with the Wüstenrot Foundation (Wüstenrot Stiftung) since 2023. In early 2024, artistic director Susanne Weiß initiated a working group to examine the ZfK’s trajectory and legacy that consisted of artists Anna Bromley, David Polzin and Suse Weber, curators Thibaut de Ruyter and Sandra Teitge as well as filmmaker Sylvie Kürsten. Making Public builds on their ongoing research at the German Federal Archives and the Akademie der Künste as well as their conversations with historic witnesses. In the resulting artistic research projects, Anna Bromley, David Polzin and Suse Weber provide historical context for art production in the GDR, illuminating archival materials that deepen contemporary understandings of the period and provoke questions about the relationship between art and the state.

Artworks from the ZfK’s and the ifa’s historical collections are the exhibitions’ second key focus, while the presentation at the Kunsthaus Dresden explores the ninth and tenth Art Exhibitions of the GDR – large-scale national exhibitions organized by the ZfK from their former headquarters in Dresden. Featured artists from the ZfK holdings include HAP Grieshaber, Charlotte Elfriede Pauly, Elizabeth Shaw, Erika Stürmer-Alex, Hans Ticha, and Karla Woisnitza, among many others. Individual exhibitions organised by the ZfK also came to represent significant points of reference. Thibaut de Ruyter’s Coda: Reenacting an Exhibition draws on the ZfK’s touring exhibition Musik in der bildenden Kunst der DDR (Music in Visual Art from the GDR), which travelled from Paris to Vienna and stopped in Bucharest as well as Duisburg, among other cities, between 1983 and 1986.

The six-part exhibition series Making Public in 2026 is presented by the ifa - Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen in cooperation with the Wüstenrot Foundation. The exhibition Productive Unrest, in cooperation with the Kunsthaus Dresden  / robotron Kantine is supported by the Kunstfonds Bonn, the Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen, the Stiftung Kunst und Musik and the Volker Hohmann Stiftung. 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).