THE MINSK House of Art in Potsdam is showing its second presentation of art from the GDR from the Hasso Plattner Collection. It focuses on dialogue as an approach to the art of the former GDR.
Image gallery
Wolfgang Mattheuer, Das graue Fenster, 1969. Hasso Plattner Collection
IN DIALOGUE shows approximately 50 works from the collection by artists like Gudrun Brüne, Hartwig Ebersbach, Ulrich Hachulla, Rolf Händler,
Bernhard Heisig, Johannes Heisig, Peter Herrmann, Ralf Kerbach, Walter Libuda,
Peter Makolies, Wolfgang Mattheuer, Harald Metzkes, Stefan Plenkers, Gerhard
Richter, Arno Rink, Cornelia Schleime, Willi Sitte, Gabriele Stötzer, Erika
Stürmer-Alex, Werner Tübke, and Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt, predominantly from the
period between 1966 and 1992.
The two chapters of the exhibition highlight the artists’
different perspectives, along with the contexts in which the works were
created. The impetus came from Arno Rink’s painting Portrait Henry Schumann
(1968) (Portrait of Henry Schumann), which depicts the art historian and critic
in Rink’s studio, as well as Schumann’s book Ateliergespräche (Studio
Conversations). In this publication, released in 1976 by the Leipzig press VEB
E. B. Seemann, 20 artists exchange their views with him. Well-known
personalities such as Bernhard Heisig and Werner Tübke appear alongside artists
with unconventional training and career paths such as Peter Hermann. This
unusual mixture of artists and the focus on their individual voices signaled a
relaxation of cultural policy at the time, yet this was marred in the same year
(1976) by a series of cultural-political and social events like the
expatriation of the poet and song writer Wolf Biermann.
In the first exhibition space, the artworks and the artists’
conversations with Schumann will be placed into a historical context. On the
upper floor of MINSK, individual works come into dialogue with one another.
These constellations open up a perspective onto broader questions about the
history of art and cultural policy in the GDR after the year 1976. The
selection is complemented by other works from the collection that illustrate
the dynamic between expression and withdrawal, between speaking out and
silence.
IN DIALOGUE also provides occasion for a new series of
studio conversations conducted by curator Daniel Milnes with artists from the
collection, which will be released as a podcast series to accompany the
exhibition. In this context, works from the collection will be examined from
the artists’ perspective as well as how art created in the GDR is seen and
shown today.
The patron Hasso Plattner collects painting with a focus,
among other things, on art from the former GDR. His collection was shown for
the first time at Haus der Brandenburgisch-Preußischen Geschichte in Potsdam in
2012. After individual paintings were shown in the group exhibition Behind the
Mask 2017–18 at the Museum Barberini, DAS MINSK will now host parts of this
collection for the second time within East German modernist architecture that
was completed in 1977 to house the former terrace restaurant “Minsk.”
Additional information
OPENING HOURS
Daily except Tuesdays
Wednesday to Monday 10 am – 7 pm
ADMISSION
10 Euros, 8 Euros concession
Combined ticket 20 Euros, 12 Euros concession
The combined ticket is valid for the Museum Barberini and DAS MINSK Kunsthaus in Potsdam.
