Germany's Cold War Cultures 1949-1989: Re-thinking the Art History of a Politically Divided Country (2009)

During the Cold War (1949-89) in both Germanys, the creation of art, its reception, and its theorization were closely linked to the respective political systems: the Western liberal democracy of the Federal Republic of German (FRG) and the Eastern communist dictatorship of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). In reaction against the legacy of Nazism, both Germanys revived pre-World War II German artistic traditions. This exhibition examines the internalization of historic German art, the increasing importance of popular and mass culture, the fashioning of two distinct national identities, and the engagement with Germany 's political and artistic past. By tracing the political, cultural, and theoretical discourses in both German art worlds, the exhibition shows the role of conventional art, new media, new art forms, popular culture, and particular domestic and international contemporary art exhibitions that played a role in the establishment of German art in the postwar era. We accompany Stephanie Barron, curator of the exhibition, and Sabine Eckmann, curator of the exhibition catalog on a walk-through of this critical re-consideration of German post-WWII art. They retrace the curatorial reasoning for the selection of works by artists which would best reflect the key social and political developments on both sides of the iron curtain during those 4 decades.