Queer art in the GDR?

The Werkbundarchiv - Museum der Dinge is a cooperation partner of the project "Queer Art in the GDR? Biographies between Underground and Propaganda", which sheds light on artists' positions from the GDR and invites visitors to re-read art from the GDR.

The exhibition and the comprehensive program of events are an initiative of KVOST - Kunstverein Ost e.V. and take place in cooperation with the neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (nGbk), the Mitte Museum and the Werkbundarchiv - Museum der Dinge.

Based on the changing biographies of nine artists and their works - including paintings, sculptures, ceramics and photographs - the exhibition shows how differently the artists dealt with the political and social conditions of their time.

To what extent did their sexual orientation influence their artistic practice and professional development?

Despite gradual decriminalization, homosexuality remained socially and politically stigmatized in the GDR.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the situation of queer artists did not improve significantly - on the contrary: many artists from the GDR were in danger of being forgotten.

Today, there is a growing general interest in the art and culture of the GDR as well as in queer realities of life. However, the combination of both perspectives - queer biographies and artistic forms of expression in the communist dictatorship - remains a largely unexplored field.

Although the term "queer" did not exist in its current meaning in the GDR, it is deliberately used in the exhibition as a collective term for people who desired and loved the same sex as lesbians, gays and bisexuals, as well as for those who lived beyond conventional notions of gender as transgender and non-binary people.

Artists

KVOST & nGbK:

Toni Ebel, Andreas Fux, Harry Hachmeister, Jochen Hass, Dorothea von Philipsborn, Erika Stürmer-Alex, Rita "Tommy" Thomas, Jürgen Wittdorf, Egon Wrobel

Mitte Museum:

andreas Fux, Jürgen WittdorfWerkbund

Archive - Museum of Things:

Egon Wrobel

Curation

Stephan Koal

Further cooperation partners

Feminist Archive FFBIZ, Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research, Museum Lichtenberg, Gay Museum, Sunday Club, Leipzig University and other private collections, contemporary witnesses and experts.

• The realization of the project is made possible by funds from the Capital Cultural Fund.With thanks to the Berlin Commissioner for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship for funding the publication.