Germany’s Cold War Cultures 1949-1989: Re-thinking the Art History of a Politically Divided Country

2009 / 60 min. / color
Directed by Michael Blackwood

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 catalogue 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. “Art of Two Germanys: Cold War Cultures” is the third ambitious exhibition on 20th century German art curated by Stephanie Barron at the Los Angeles County Museum, after “Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany” and “Exiles and Emigrés: The Flight of German Artists from Hitler”.

The walk-through of the exhibition is enriched by rare historic film footage of East and West Germany as well as of the participating artists.

The exhibition “Art of Two Germanys/Cold War Cultures, 1945-1989” was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in cooperation with Kulturprojekte Berlin GmbH, Dr. Eckhart Gillen, co-curator.