A significant new exhibition at Berlin's Martin Gropius Bau gallery is shining a spotlight on Gabriele Stötzer, one of East Germany's most radical artists. Titled 'Dabei Sein und nicht schweigen' (Show up and don’t be quiet), the show is the largest-ever celebration of a female East German artist in a state museum, featuring 150 of Stötzer's works in a dedicated wing until 6 December.
Now 73, Stötzer's artistic practice emerged from a life lived in defiance of the communist GDR regime. She famously recounted having to choose between buying food and purchasing film for her Super 8 camera, embodying the profound sacrifices made for creative expression under oppressive conditions. Her work, spanning five decades, includes woven carpets, drawings, photographs, sculptures crafted from found objects, and large scrapbook-style albums, which became a vital outlet after she was banned from official exhibitions for refusing to join the GDR's state-sanctioned artists' association.
Stötzer's journey into art began during her incarceration in the notorious Hoheneck women’s prison in Saxony in the late 1970s. She was imprisoned after protesting the expatriation of dissident singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann. Reflecting on her time behind bars, she noted, “Living in a land already cordoned off from the rest of the world by the Berlin Wall, I found myself behind yet another set of walls.” This period solidified her commitment to art as a means of survival and a dream of another life.
Unlike many intellectuals and artists, Stötzer refused offers from the West German government to be 'bought out' of the East, believing it would legitimise the anti-capitalist regime's actions. Instead, she chose to remain, envisioning the GDR as an experimental space for artistic collaboration, feminist struggle, and solidarity. She operated underground, lived in a squat, and co-founded a women's artists' collective, all while under constant surveillance by the Stasi, East Germany's secret police, who frequently suppressed their activities.
Curators Julia Grosse and Christopher Wierling visited Stötzer in her Erfurt flat, where her kitchen doubles as her studio, to prepare for the exhibition. They highlighted that the show aims to rectify the long-standing oversight of Stötzer as an artist in her own right, rather than solely as an eyewitness to history. Her Super 8 films, in particular, captured expressions of individuality the state sought to quash, from dancing naked with friends to orgiastic body painting and free-climbing walls, often using the grainy texture of the film to evoke a sense of raw, authentic freedom.