Link only available on sub pages

“We have an extensive and diverse collection of art from the GDR. The works range from positions conforming to state-approved art to those radically breaking with them – and include many facets in between where artists defined themselves more by their content and less by the system they lived under. As for most collection areas, here too you find proportionally far fewer women artists – especially those working outside the established medium of painting. Yet in subcultures, in particular, there were many courageous, innovative and subversive women artists, though unfortunately before and after the Berlin Wall fell, they remained off the radar of public art discourse. In 2018 to 2019, with The Medea Insurrection. Radical Women Artists behind the Iron Curtain we dedicated a special exhibition to them. Now our task, though, is to close these gaps in our holdings, ensuring we can, in this museum context, suitably reflect the diversity of art in the GDR for future generations. Over the last years, in this spirit, we have primarily acquired works by women artists for our collection of GDR art. These artists include photographer Tina Bara, as well as painters Cornelia Schleime, or Christine Schlegel, who is also known for her work in experimental film with, for instance, the legendary dancer Fine. But we also have new acquisitions from artists such as Christa Jeitner, a textile artist who liberates fabrics from the label of ‘merely’ craftwork. To do justice to the comprehensive tradition of performance art, which was also part of the GDR’s art scene, the SKD – the Dresden State Art Collections – have also acquired, for instance, costumes and archival materials, such as photography. One example here would be acquisitions from the Erfurt Women Artists’ Group founded by artist Gabriele Stötzer, a group which can be considered exemplary for feminist tendencies in art in the GDR in the 1980s.”