Art of Two Germanys / Cold War Cultures

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Jan 25–Apr 19, 2009

Reviewed by: Doris Berger

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is the first host of an ambitious exhibition pro-
ject about the art of post war Germany, or more specifically: the two Germanys. It features 300 art
works that were created between 1945 and 1989 by 120 artists from West Germany (FRG, Federal
Republic of Germany) and East Germany (GDR, German Democratic Republic). The subtitle „Cold
War Cultures“ stresses the fact that there were ideological implications in the art production on
both sides of the Iron Curtain. LACMA's Senior Curator Stephanie Barron initiated this exhibition
and found in her German colleague and co-curator Eckhart Gillen, from Kulturprojekte (Berlin), a
most knowledgeable partner. Both curators have worked in the area of German art before, but
whereas Barron has concentrated on topics situated historically earlier, such as German Expres-
sionism, the „degenerate art“ show by the Nazis, and the art and culture of the exiles and émigrés
in California, Gillen is a specialist in postwar German art with a particular expertise in art from the
GDR.[1] For the extensive catalogue, which also offers historical background information, Barron
collaborated with Sabine Eckmann (Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis) who co-edited
the book.[2]

The exhibition display is organized in chapters following a chronological order and starts with the
destruction of Germany at the end of the Second World War. From 1945-1949 a grim Germany is
shown as lost in mourning and debris documenting the apocalyptic scenario and the searching
for a new cultural identity after the horrors of the Nazi era. Photographs of bombed remains by
Richard Peter Sr. or Herbert List and drawings by Wilhelm Rudolph as well as Hans Grundig's
painting „To the Victims of Fascism“ (1946/49) visualize death and destruction in a painful way.
At the same time, joy in the newly gained freedom from the Hitler dictatorship can be seen in col-
orful abstractions painted right after the war by Ernst Wilhelm Nay and Werner Heldt.

In 1949 Germany's split into two different political systems started a formal and ideological
debate: the West saw abstract art as a sign of freedom,[3] while the East developed its own dist-
inct language of figurative art (Social Realism), officially defying abstract art.[4] In a remarkably
installed gallery, these two different artistic approaches are juxtaposed. Although the works clash
aesthetically, their proximity shows convincingly that both art productions were part of an ideologi-
cal machine, however divergent. In addition, the curators manage to transcend a simple binary
thinking and build a bridge between the ideologies by presenting the outstanding work of the
artist Herrmann Glöckner (Dresden). He officially worked as a GDR graphic designer but privately
made abstract art with small objects of daily life. This room with the Glöckner showcase in its cen-
ter epitomizes the aim of the exhibition, through discussing the political implications in their

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dialectics but transcending them at the same time.

The art of the '60s is presented as an explosion of the senses. Entering this room, viewers are
engulfed by the intense chocolate smell from Dieter Roth's „Schokoladenlöwenturm“ (1969) and
visually overwhelmed by the abstract formations by the ZERO group. There are photographs of dif-
ferent Fluxus performances, a reconstruction of Gerhard Richter's installation „Volker Bradke“
(1966) and Sigmar Polke's wall installation „Die Fünfziger Jahre“ (1963-69). Here, the main focus
lies on capitalist culture of the West during the years of the „Wirtschaftswunder“. Wolf Vostell's
„B-52 (Lippenstiftbomber)“ (1968) is an adequate multilayered metaphor for this time. But the
question is: what happened in the East at that time? When the Berlin wall was erected in 1961,
hopes for a politically different society were shattered and many East Germans moved to the
West. The cultural climate of the 60s in the East was very different from the thriving culture of the
West, nevertheless art outside of the official Social Realism always existed. Why do we not see
what had been produced there, such as the officially disapproved but nevertheless existing abs-
tract art?[5] Stephanie Barron explained this as an aesthetical decision and stressed the fact that
she wanted to avoid a continuous ongoing comparison between East and West in the same
rooms throughout the exhibition.

Large exhibitions of comparable size and ambition are always confronted with necessary exclu-
sions and various decisions that stay hidden from the audience. Regarding the declared aim of
the exhibition to show the impact of politics on society and art, it is regrettable though that there
remains a blind spot on the feminist movement that was so important in Germany in the 1970s.
This perspective would have been significant because pre-war gender roles recurred in the post-
war era. Especially in the so-called „free“ West the role models for women were less free than in
the East. The western ideology of the economic boom (Wirtschaftswunder) was efficient in send-
ing women back to their kitchen. Decades later, these reactionary gender politics caused various
artistic reflections on the status of images and the power of representation. Thus, feminist art had
a greater impact in the development of West German art, which could have been found in the
works by Ulrike Ottinger, Ulrike Rosenbach or Annegret Soltau. The following galleries represent-
ing the late 1960s and '70s are devoted to works that deal critically with the Nazi past, indeed a
very important subject that shaped this time as well. Although we see important paintings from
East and West by Baselitz, Lüpertz, Schönebeck, Kiefer, Tübke, Penck, Mattheuer, Vostell and
Richter, the gap of missing works of women artists and their coming to terms with their past and
present is highly visible. [6]

The galleries devoted to the art of the 1980s are more diverse. While some works still deal with
the Nazi past, like Georg Herold's brilliant sculpture „Laokoon (Laokoön)“ (1984) and Olaf Metzel's
project „Türkenwohnung“ (1982), other works tackle issues about terror connected to the RAF
(Red Army Faction) in West Germany. Another perspective is devoted to the photographic docu-
mentation of the East and West German societies. The curators effectively show the important
role of photography for both East and West since the 1950s. Interestingly, the show brings
together several works of women photographers who were active in the GDR, such as Evelyn
Richter, Barbara Metselaar-Berthold, Helga Paris, Gundula Schulze Eldowy, Maria Sewcz, or Sibylle
Bergemann.[7] Another outstanding body of work from the 1980s are the provocative and surreal-
istic performances and objects of the „Autoperforation Group“ (Else Gabriel, Via Lewandowsky,
Micha Brendel, and Rainer Görß) that went beyond any kind of sense making machinery.

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On the question why this exhibition originated and is first shown in Los Angeles, curator
Stephanie Barron answered that there is a deep interest in German art and culture in California,
partly because of so many well-known immigrants that found refuge here during the Nazi era. In a
review of the show in the New York Times Michael Kimmelman stated that this exhibition repre-
sented „a fresh and sympathetic view of postwar art on both sides of the Wall.“ [8] I would like to
add that the educational value should not be underestimated either, simultaneously showing the
aesthetic developments and the socio- political contexts of two Germanys during in the Cold War.
Even though there are blind spots, this exhibition in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is a
tour de force through post war German art history that finally engages the audience to look closer
on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

[1] Other exhibitions curated by Stephanie Barron: German Expressionism 1915-1925: The Second Genera-

tion, Los Angeles County Museum of Art 1988; „Degenerate art“: The Fate of the Avant-garde in Nazi Ger-

many, Los Angeles County Museum of Art 1991; Exiles + Emigrès: The Flight of European Artists from

Hitler, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1997. Eckhart Gillen curated the exhibition Deutschlandbilder:

Kunst aus einem geteilten Land, Martin Gropius Bau 1997; see also his publications, such as: Kunst in der

DDR, co-ed. with Rainer Haarmann, Köln 1990; Das Kunstkombinat DDR: Zäsuren einer gescheiterten Kun-

stpolitik, Köln 2005. Feindliche Brüder? Der Kalte Krieg und die deutsche Kunst 1945-1989, Köln 2009.

[2] Stephanie Barron/Sabine Eckmann (eds.), Art of Two Germanys: Cold War Cultures, exhib.-cat. Los

Angeles County Museum of Art, New York: Abrams, 2009.

[3] That might be comparable to Abstract Expressionism in the US, see: Serge Guilbaut, How New York

Stole the Idea of Modern Art. Abstract Expressionism, Freedom, and the Cold War, Chicago: The University

of Chicago Press, 1983.

[4] For Walter Ulbricht abstract art was an expression of the capitalist downfall and contradicted the GDR

ideology as he stated in a speech at Volkskammer on 30 October 1951: „Wir wollen in unseren Kunsthoch-

schulen keine abstrakten Bilder mehr sehen. Wir brauchen weder Bilder von Mondlandschaften noch von

faulen Eiern. Die Grau-in- Grau-Malerei, die ein Ausdruck des kapitalistischen Niedergangs ist, steht im

schroffsten Widerspruch zum heutigen Leben in der DDR.“

[5] This was the focus of an entire exhibition. See: Sigrid Hofer (ed.): Gegenwelten. Informelle Malerei in

der DDR. Das Beispiel Dresden, exhib.-cat. Marburger Kunstverein, Frankfurt a. M./Basel: Stroem-

feld/Roter-Stern, 2006.

[6] One reason might be that some of the works have been shown in the critically acclaimed group exhibi-

tion on feminist art curated by Cornelia Butler entitled WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, The Muse-

um of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2007. Despite that, it would have

been extremely important to include some works with feminist concerns in the show in order to relate femi-

nism to a wider social and political development. The risk is high that the uncanny prediction of Amelia

Jones comes into effect,: „... all of us writing about and exhibiting art under the rubric of feminism are parti-

cipating in a broad scale PR campaign that packages feminism as a commodity to be bought and sold

(and, very soon no doubt, to be rendered obsolete once again).“ Amelia Jones, „1970/2007: The Return of

Feminist Art,“ in: X-tra, v. 10, no. 3, Spring 2008, p. 5.

[7] The American reception compares some of the artists to its own cultural reference system. Barbara

Metselaar-Berthold is called „East Germany's Nan Goldin“ or Schulze-Eldowy as a „kind of German samiz-

dat Diane Arbus“. See Michael Kimmelmann, „Art in Two Germanys Often Spoke the Same Tongue,“ in: The

New York Times, 12. February 2009.

[8] Michael Kimmelmann, „Art in Two Germanys Often Spoke the Same Tongue“, in: New York Times,

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February 12, 2009.

Recommended Citation:

Doris Berger: [Review of:] Art of Two Germanys / Cold War Cultures (Los Angeles County Museum of Art,

Jan 25–Apr 19, 2009). In: ArtHist.net, Mar 16, 2009 (accessed Feb 7, 2024),

<https://arthist.net/reviews/31384>.

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