Unrestrained Self-Movements at the Diesel Power Plant Cottbus
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Photography as a Space of Freedom in the Diesel Power Plant Cottbus
The exhibition Unrestrained Self-Movements. Art with Photography in the GDR focuses on an experimental image culture of the 1980s. At the Brandenburg State Museum for Modern Art, photography is not understood as neutral documentation, but as material for self-assertion, self-expansion, and artistic boundary crossing.
Another Photography of the GDR
In the tightly regulated society of the GDR, artists developed distinctive forms of an alternative photography and a bottom-up photography. The exhibited positions consciously detached themselves from established conventions and questioned the journalistic-documentary understanding of images. Privately produced photo portfolios and semi-legal magazines created their own spaces for publication, exchange, and aesthetic self-determination.
Between Performance, Installation, and Distortion
Photography appears in this exhibition as an open artistic process. Staging, montage, serial sequencing, and poetic distortion are combined with performance, action, body art, and installation. The photographic image does not merely document a reality; it changes, questions, and reimagines it. Works by Claus Bach, Tina Bara, Micha Brendel, Kurt Buchwald, Thomas Florschuetz, Cornelia Schleime, Erasmus Schröter, and Gabriele Stötzer are among those on display.
Curatorial Perspective and Art Historical Context
The exhibition concept was developed by Christoph Tannert as an external curator. The curation makes a previously fragmentarily told chapter of East German art history visible and situates the works within the tension between experimental photography, conceptual art, performance, and subcultural image practices. The exhibition thus links art historical expertise with cultural education and a precise observation of works.
The Diesel Power Plant as a Resonance Space
The industrial architecture of the former diesel power plant enhances the exhibition atmosphere. Clear spatial axes, visible materials, and concentrated museum lighting engage in an intense dialogue with photographic image surfaces, serial structures, and cross-media works. In this spatial effect, an intense artistic experience emerges around freedom, body, memory, and artistic autonomy.
Conclusion: Seeing Photography Anew
Visitors can expect a professionally informed and sensually impactful exhibition on GDR art, experimental photography, and the political power of aesthetic forms. Those who wish to discover photography as a space for thought, installation, and performative gesture will experience a lasting aesthetic experience at the Diesel Power Plant Cottbus. A visit enriches the perspective on East German art history and makes the resistant power of these image worlds immediately tangible.
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- Website: https://www.blmk.de/programm/ungebremste-selbstbewegungen/
