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Feminist Art History and/in the Erstwhile Eastern Bloc

In the last fifteen years or so art historians and visual culture researchers have slowly but steadily begun to turn attention to women’s art production in socialist Eastern Europe. Former East Germany (GDR) has posed one of the greatest challenges to feminist revisionist art histories—unlike other state socialist projects that underwent a transformation period and ostensibly emerged as liberal democratic nations, the GDR disappeared in the reunification process. The result has been a gaping absence in the visibility of women’s artistic practices in East Germany with national focus, instead, put on women artists from what was West Germany. For this reason, the textual reference materials included here give an overview of different entry points into thinking women’s art production in socialist Eastern Europe with a particular emphasis on research on the GDR. Altmann’s exhibition The Media Insurrection stands as a pioneering example in this regard in its investigation of art created in East Germany in relation to Eastern Europe rather than the West.

Talk Me Through...

Left: Black and white photograph shows person behind four light projectors. They are holding two objects and wearing goggles and a headpiece made from metal.   Right: Painting shows a white female-presenting person standing in front of a brick wall. They are wearing work clothes. On the floor, pieces of wiring are scattered. Behind the person in the foreground, through a window on the wall, another white female-presenting person operates a machine while looking outside.

Talk Me Through... is a five-episode podcast series that take listeners inside works of art that have been key in the development of Susanne Altmann’s research project When Technology Was Female. In episode one Altmann discusses works by photographer Evelyn Richter and painter Doris Ziegler. Listen to episode one here.

Left: Evelyn Richter, Selbstinszenierung, TU Dresden, 1952. S/W-Fotografie / Barytpapier. Kunstfonds, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. © SKD, Photo: Stefanie Recsko. Right: Doris Ziegler, Brigade ‘Rosa Luxemburg’, Portrait Eva, 1975. Oil on hardboard, 125 x 80 cm. Collection of Lindenau-Museum Altenburg, Photo: Bertram Kober / PUNCTUM. © VG Bild-Kunst, 2019.

Visual references

Exhibition installation view of “The Medea Insurrection: Radical Women Artists Behind the Iron Curtain” at the Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau, Dresden; December 8 2018–March 31 2019.
Person stands in a gallery looking at the photographs exhibited.
A gallery space housed in what looks like a cellar. Underneath the three arches, there are three video screens. In front of each one of them there are plinths with headphones on top.
Gallery space with two levels, a mezzanine level and a ground floor. There are photographs and paintings hanging on both levels. The people on top are looking down. The people on the bottom are blurred by a photographic effect.
Gallery space with ceiling windows. Different photographs, paintings and artefacts hang on the two white walls. In the middle, there are two structures exhibit mannequins with clothing.
Corner of a gallery space. Four frames with photographs hang on the purple walls. In the foreground, there is an installation made from small pieces of waste takes the shape of a human body.
Pages from the catalog for 'The Medea Insurrection: Radical Women Artists Behind the Iron Curtain', co-edited by the State Art Collections, Dresden with Susanne Altmann, Katarina Lozo and Hilke Wagner (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2019).
Page scanned from a book, showing images of four artworks. On the top left, a photograph of a female-presenting person in front of a stone wall, holding a mask to their face. On the right, a photograph of a white crumpled paper with the contours of a face seen in relief in the middle. On the bottom left, a circular shaped wooden structure, with two cut-outs where two photographs of eyes can be seen. From the circular middle, three legs spring down and another leg with a handle springs up. On the bottom right, a black and white photograph shows a person behind four light projectors. They are holding two objects and wearing goggles and a headpiece made from metal.

Clockwise from upper left: Cornelia Schleime, Bodypainting action in Hüpstadt (1981), photograph painted over, 18 x 13 cm; Adriene Šimotova, Gesicht (1986), relief object and paper, 45 x 50 cm; Evelyn Richter, Selbstinszenierung, TU Dresden (1952), black & white photography; Geta Brătescu, The Traveller (1970), wooden folding chair and paper print, 89 x 23,5 cm.

Page scanned from a book, showing images of three artworks. On the top left, an image shows the impression of four lips in red, the last one almost invisible. In the middle of each ‘kiss’ is a letter from the alphabet, which together spell the word Love. On top, the title reads: poem by ewa. The top right artwork is a photograph of a brown suitcase against a curtain that creates a deep blue background. There are several objects made from paper on top of the suitcase, with the most visible one being a white building with a small red heart. On the curtains, above the suitcase, three light blue clouds have been clipped. In the artwork at the bottom of the page, several small photographs make up three words: NATALIA IST SEX.

Ewa Partum, Poem by Ewa (1972), paper, lipstick and ink; Zofia Kulik, Brief aus Mailand (Aktivität auf dem Koffer), 21 Stadien (1972), inkjet print 65 x 44 cm; Natalia LL, Natalia ist Sex (1974), photographic installation, 13 photographs, 60 x 60 cm.

Page scanned from a book, showing two black and white photographs of the same performance event. On the top, a female-presenting person stands in front of a microphone, wearing what looks like a fur vest and holding an object. Behind, people are watching the performance. In the picture at the bottom, the same person appears squatting down and holding a candle.

Katalin Ladik, Phonic Performance in Budapest (Poetry evening with Jenõ Balaskó) (1970).

Page scanned from a book, showing a photograph of an installation representing the head, face and torso of a person in papier-maché.

Geta Brătescu, Lady Oliver and Sir Thonet (1991), installation.

Page scanned from a book, showing two images. The one on top is a photograph of the top section of an installation made from small pieces of waste, which takes the shape of a human body. The image at the bottom, is a black and white photograph with of six people posing in fantastic costumes.

Installation view of the garbage costume (top) and photographic documentation of the protagonists (bottom) from the performance The Top of Meat Mountain (1986).

Page scanned from a book, showing three images from the same series. On the top left is a black and white photograph of a female presenting person with the words “I am a work of art 1980” written underneath. On the top right is an image shows a typewritten page of text starting with the statement “My name is Judit Kele”, which is followed by one-line “I …” statements. The image at the bottom is a black and white photograph of a female presenting person wearing a black dress. They are lighting up a stove with a wand emitting an unusually large flame.

Judit Kele, I am a Work of Art (1979–1984).

Pages from the ‘Socialist Iconosphere’ section of the catalog for Gender Check: Femininity and Masculinity in the Art of Eastern Europe, co-edited by the Museum of Modern Art Vienna with Bojana Pejić (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2009).
Painting shows three female presenting people sitting at a green table where they are preparing three large fish.

Galina Petrova, Women, Cleaning Fish (1969), Synthetic tempera on canvas, 150 x 140 cm.

Oil painting shows a female-presenting person with their arms resting on a wooden fence. They are wearing a white apron and headscarf. Behind them, there are large agricultural fields and a small stable, seen to the left.

Oleksandr Makhukov, Master of Machine Milking Taisiya Gluboka (1975), Oil on canvas, 40 x 80 cm.

Oil painting in blue tones shows four female-presenting people. In the foreground, two of them stand together, one with their hands inside the dress pockets, the other holding two cones of white yarn. Behind them, a person operates a loom, while another fixes the yarn cones that are stacked from top to bottom in the background of the scene.

Ana Baranovici, Muncitoare (Women Workers) (1974), oil on canvas, 133 x 184 cm.

Four black and white photographs depict a group of people spreading out white bed sheets in an open field.

Zorka Ságlová, Kladení plín u Sudoměře (Laying Diapers at Sudoměře), series of b/w photographs, 30 x 40 cm each.

Series of 15 black and white photographs depict a performance where a female-presenting person appears in a field. They are experimenting with a cube-shaped rock, seemingly holding and rocking it, wrapping it in thread and then fabric, setting it on fire and throwing it around.

Dóra Maurer, What Can One Do with a Paving Stone (1971), documentation of performance, b/w photographs, 80 x 70 cm.

Two pages scanned from a book. On the left page is a picture of a body wrapped up in a light pink satin duvet. On the right is a photograph of a female-presenting person sitting straight up on a chair. A dog lays by their feet to the left. To their right, a cat rests on top of a table with a brown patterned tablecloth.

Cornelia Schleime, Auf weitere gute Zusammenarbeit (On Further Cooperation) (1993), photographs on silk screen, 100 x 70 cm each (detail).

Two pages scanned from a book. On the left page is a photograph of a person sitting at a wooden table on a rooftop. The ground and the buildings behind them are covered in snow. On the right side another photograph shows a person wearing black shorts and a sleeveless shirt. They are posing in front of a long white car in a leafy residential area.

Cornelia Schleime, Auf weitere gute Zusammenarbeit (On Further Cooperation) (1993), photographs on silk screen, 100 x 70 cm each (detail).

Textual references

PDF

Ebert, Hildtrud. ‘Where are the Women Artists? An Attempt to Explain the Disappearance of a Generation of East German Women Artists’ in Gender Check: A Reader. Art and Theory in Eastern Europe, edited by Bojana Pejić, 185–191 (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2010). ›››

WEB

Altmann, Susanne. ‘Why the Insurrection, Medea?’, originally published in The Medea Insurrection (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2019) and re-printed in Blok Magazine, July 21, 2022. ›››

PDF

Bryzgel, Amy. ‘Gender, feminism and the second public sphere in Eastern European performance art’ in Performance Art in the Second Public Sphere: Event-based Art in Late Socialist Europe, edited by Katalin Cseh-Varga and Adam Czirak, 167–183 (London: Routledge, 2018). ›››

PDF

Selections from Gender Check: Femininity and Masculinity in the Art of Eastern Europe (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2009). ›››

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Hock, Beáta. ‘Performing Women in the second public sphere’ in Performance Art in the Second Public Sphere: Event-based Art in Late Socialist Europe, edited by Katalin Cseh-Varga and Adam Czirak, 202–218 (London: Routledge, 2018). ›››

PDF

Blaylock, Sara. ‘The Taboo of the Ordinary, the Valor of the Misfit: Photographs by Gundula Schulze and Films by Cornelia Schleime’ in Parallel Public: Experimental Art in Late East Germany, 89–120 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2022). ›››

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James, Sarah E. ‘Art Workers in the House: Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt’s Typewritings’ in Paper Revolution: An Invisible Avant-Garde, 221–318 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2022). ›››

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Richter, Angelika. ‘Artistic collaborations of performing women in the GDR’ in Performance Art in the Second Public Sphere: Event-based Art in Late Socialist Europe, edited by Katalin Cseh-Varga and Adam Czirak, 219–236 (London: Routledge, 2018). ›››

WEB

Zofia Rydet in: Krystyna Łyczywek, Conversations on Photography 1970–1990, Voivodeship Council in Szczecin and the Association of Polish Art Photographers (ZPAF) in Warsaw, Szczecin 1990: 33–37. ›››