documenta and the GDR: Two panel discussions in Potsdam and Berlin
Encounter between East and West? The bronze sculpture “ Die Ringer” (“The Wrestlers”, 1973) by Jo Jastram in front of the State Theater Kassel, documenta 6, 1977, © documenta archiv / Photo: Hans Heinrich Braun (Thomas Michael Braun)
In 1977, artists from the GDR took part in documenta for the very first time. The artistic director at the time, Manfred Schneckenburger, invited four East German painters, Willi Sitte, Wolfgang Mattheuer, Bernhard Heisig, Werner Tübke and the two sculptors Jo Jastram and Fritz Cremer to Kassel. In her study “Exhibition Politics. Die documenta und die DDR” (published in the documenta archiv series) spans an arc from the first documenta in 1955 to its tenth edition in 1997, from the time of the Cold War and the construction of the Wall to the opening up to Eastern European and East German artists in the 1990s.
In conjunction with a lecture, Alexia Pooth and Christoph Tannert will discuss the results of the study.
on September 11, 2024 at 7 pm at KunstHausPotsdam
Opening: Martin Gorholt, Chairman of KulturHaus e.V.
Leading the discussion: Jutta Braun, historian and head of department at the Leibniz Center for Contemporary History Potsdam (ZZF)
With Alexia Pooth, art and cultural historian and Christoph Tannert, art historian
The results of Alexia Pooth's study “The documenta and the GDR” will be discussed once again in Berlin in October.
on October 11 at 8 pm at the Literaturforum in the Brecht House