Unbraked Self-Movements at the Diesel Power Plant Cottbus: Photography as a Space of Freedom
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Photography as a Space of Freedom: Unbraked Self-Movements at the Diesel Power Plant Cottbus
The exhibition Unbraked Self-Movements. Art with Photography in the GDR is dedicated to an idiosyncratic and experimental image culture of the 1980s. At the Brandenburg State Museum for Modern Art, photography is not seen as a neutral documentation, but as artistic material for self-assertion, self-expansion, and boundary crossing.
A Different Photography of the GDR
In the tightly regulated society of the GDR, artists developed forms of a different photography that distanced itself from the journalistic-documentary understanding of images. Photographic processes combined with performance, installation, action, intervention, and serial sequences of images. The focus was not solely on the external form, but on the idea and the conscious reflection on the conditions of the medium.
Image Spaces between Alienation and Self-Assertion
The works displayed open image spaces full of tension and ambiguity. Montage, staging, poetic shifts, and anti-aesthetic impulses transform photography into an open space for thought and action. The photographic image becomes an aesthetic experience that not only depicts reality but questions and reinterprets it.
Artistic Positions of an Underrated Avant-Garde
With works by Claus Bach, Tina Bara, Micha Brendel, Kurt Buchwald, Klaus Elle, Irene Fischer, Thomas Florschuetz, Else Gabriel, Rainer Görß, Klaus Hähner-Springmühl, Matthias Leupold, Olaf Martens, Cornelia Schleime, Erasmus Schröter, Gabriele Stötzer and other artists, the exhibition makes a previously fragmentarily told chapter of GDR art history visible. The diverse positions showcase photography as gesture, process, and means of individual counter-worlds.
Curatorship and Art Historical Context
The exhibition concept comes from external curator Christoph Tannert. His curatorial perspective focuses on a non-state-supportive art practice that evaded established categories. The exhibition connects art-historical classification with immediate artwork examination and opens pathways to cultural education about art, society, and personal freedom.
Art Experience in the Historical Diesel Power Plant
The industrial architecture of the former Diesel Power Plant shapes the atmosphere of the exhibition. Brick, steel, historical spatial structures, and concentrated museum lighting create a resonant space full of tension for the photographic works. Here, industrial history, modern art, and the visual energy of a generation that consistently expanded its means of expression meet.
Conclusion: Visitors can expect an immersive exhibition about photography as an artistic experiment, as a physical gesture, and as a means of self-empowerment. The art experience in the Diesel Power Plant Cottbus connects aesthetic experience with historical knowledge. Anyone who wants to understand and experience the independent art with photography in the GDR should visit this exhibition live.
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