Demonstration by the Polish trade union Solidarnosc in the pilgrimage city of Tschenstochau (Poland). The illegal trade union Solidarnosc grew into a mass movement that could no longer be stopped.
Quelle: AP Photo

Creative refusal

Эта статья еще не переведена русский. 

The SED regarded artists as servants to the political system. A number of individuals tried to escape this expectation, wanting to create their work free from patronage by the state. To circumvent bans on performing and state censorship, they worked in private and church circles.

The band Tacheles in concert in the Zion Church in East Berlin, 1987. A few months before the concert, a state functionary had banned the founding musician André Greiner-Pol (top l.) from performing for life, and prohibited his band Freygang, not for the first time.
Quelle: Harald Hauswald/OSTKREUZ
East Berlin, back yard in Schönhauser Allee: a fashion show by the nonconformist designers from ccd and Allerleirauh. An alternative cultural scene grew up in East Germany in the 1980s. The events in back yards, basements and private premises took place without the permission of the state cultural authorities.
Quelle: Robert-Havemann-Gesellschaft/Hartmut Beil/ RHG_Fo_HBeil_078
Exhibition poster from the Eigen + Art Gallery, Leipzig, 1989. From 1985 on, the Leipziger Gerd Harry Lybke managed to run an unofficial gallery using all kinds of tricks and loopholes.
Quelle: Galerie EIGEN + ART/Leipzig
The musicians Christian Kunert (l.) and Gerulf Pannach (2nd from l.) and the writer Jürgen Fuchs (r.) were welcomed in West Berlin by Wolf Biermann (2nd from r.) on 27 August 1977 after their release from Stasi imprisonment. The SED used harassment, performance bans, threats of imprisonment and expatriation to drive prominent critical artists out of the country.
Quelle: Robert-Havemann-Gesellschaft/Johanna Guschlbauer
The singer-songwriter Bettina Wegner in concert in 1980. Wegner resisted state intervention in her lyrics by the cultural authorities, and was then banned from performing in East Germany. Her only chance to perform was in churches. Wegner was pressured to leave the country and moved to West Berlin in 1983.
Quelle: ullstein bild/Heinrichs
[Translate to Russisch:] In ihrer Wohnung in Magdeburg eröffnen Ingrid und Dietrich Bahß 1981 eine private Galerie. Sie wird zum Ort für offene Gespräche und Diskussionen. Eröffnung der Foto-Ausstellung von Gundula Schulze mit dem Puppentheater Zinnober.
Quelle:
[Translate to Russisch:] Plakat der Malerin Cornelia Schleime zu ihrer Ausstellung 1982.
Quelle: Cornelia Schleime, 1982
The Protestant Student Community in East Berlin, 1982. Werner Theuer (l.) and Jutta Werdowski (r.), both members of the opposition scene in East Berlin, acted out the dissident play Die Schlinge (“The Noose”) in churches or private premises.
Quelle: Robert-Havemann-Gesellschaft
The photographer Harald Hauswald in East Berlin, 22 April 1987. Hauswald chronicled the opposition movement in the GDR through his work. His pictures show the reality behind the pompous façade of East German state propaganda.
Quelle: Privatarchiv Carlo Jordan
An alternative arts scene grew up in the East Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg during the 1980s. Many of its leading figures saw themselves as apolitical artists, such as the writers Jan Faktor, Bert Papenfuß and Stefan Döring (l.-r). Faktor did later become involved in the New Forum movement in the autumn of 1989, however.
Quelle: Privatarchiv Jan Faktor
Alexanderplatz underground station in East Berlin, 1989. The Theater „Zinnober“ was founded by puppeteers and actors in 1979. „Zinnober“ was the first free theatre in the GDR, and for many years the only one. It developed artistic ideas outside of the official theatre sector.
Quelle: Jochen Wermann
Exhibition poster by Henning Wagenbreth, 1989: “Cyclists have nothing to lose but their chains”.
Quelle: Henning Wagenbreth
Underground dissident magazine Glasnot, 1989. The title is a play on the Russian word glasnost (openness) and the German Not (need). Small print runs of illegal magazines produced via samizdat (self-publishing) allowed artistic content to be distributed along unofficial routes. This was an ideal way to evade state bans and censorship.
Quelle: Privatarchiv Christian Sachse
The writers Lutz Rathenow and Uwe Kolbe reading in the Prenzlauer Berg district of East Berlin, 1982. Writers who criticised the system were not allowed to publish in the GDR. They managed to reach audiences through typed manuscripts and readings in private premises.
Quelle: Harald Hauswald/OSTKREUZ

Kunst ist in der DDR an die politische Ideologie der Staatspartei SED gebunden. Alle Bereiche der Kunst werden staatlich gesteuert und geprüft. Einen freien Kunstmarkt gibt es nicht.

Ab Ende der 1970er-Jahre entwickelt sich in der DDR eine alternative Kunstszene. Ihre Protagonisten verstehen sich meist nicht als politische Oppositionelle. Doch ihr Streben nach eigenständigen Ausdrucksformen ruft das Misstrauen der DDR-Führung hervor. Die Staatssicherheit unterwandert die Szene, um deren öffentliche Wirkung zu beschränken.

Dennoch finden kritische Künstler in Kirchen, Hinterhöfen und privaten Räumen ein wachsendes Publikum. Einige wenden sich offen gegen die Diktatur und arbeiten in oppositionellen Gruppen mit. Sie erhalten Berufsverbot, werden verhaftet oder ausgewiesen. Immer mehr versuchen, die DDR zu verlassen, um frei schaffen zu können.

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