"Whose East German art is this?"

"Whose East German art is this?" asked the American art historian April Eisman back in 2017. In order to discuss this question in a broader context of the academic approach to art from East Germany from 1945 to the present day, Prof. Dr. Sylvia Claus (Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg (BTU), Institute of History of Art and Architecture), Prof. April Eisman(Iowa State University/Transatlantic Institute for East German Art - TIEGA) and Dr. Angelika Weißbach(Museum Utopie und Alltag / Kunstarchiv Beeskow) are hosting their first Summer Academy for East German Art together with the Ostdeutsche Sparkassenstiftung from 19 to 22 June 2024.

"Reducingthe history of East German art to the period of just 40 years of the GDR means marginalizing this art and failing to understand its current relevance, especially for the present. At the Summer Academy, we will therefore not only ask what East German art actually is, but also what historical and social significance it has for the current East-West debate, for example, and how we can grasp its artistic qualities," explains Prof. Dr. Sylvia Claus, Professor of Art History and Head of the Institute of History of Art and Architecture at BTU.

Doctoral candidates, young academics and established academics and curators in the field of East German art are invited. A total of twelve people will take part, so that in-depth discussions of original works of art are just as possible as intensive discussions on the vocabulary used or the questioning of stereotypes. The focus will be less on political structures and more on a more differentiated examination of art and artists in the GDR.

A central goal of the Summer Academy is to create a basis for future research and at the same time to build a network of academics that will help to counteract the isolation that many doctoral candidates and young academics face due to the marginalization of the topic within the university system.

"Following the successful conference East German Art: Stocktaking and Perspectives, which was held jointly with the Moritzburg Art Museum in Halle (Saale) and the Dresden Institute for Cultural Studies in September 2023, we are delighted to be able to support the establishment of a network with academics from different generations. We are not only interested in individual project funding, but also in strengthening East German art nationwide and internationally and helping to break down possible prejudices," says Patricia Werner, Managing Director of the Ostdeutsche Sparkassenstiftung.

The first stop will be Beeskow, where the American Germanist and film scholar Prof. Dr. Stephen Brockmann will present an outside perspective on the topic in an evening lecture, speaking on the occasion of his latest publication on 1990 and the "last GDR". Afterwards, the Beeskow Art Archive, with its special collection of paintings, graphics and sculptures that were publicly acquired in the GDR, will offer numerous points of reference for image analysis and contextualization. After Eisenhüttenstadt, where everyday culture, architecture and urban planning in the GDR can be experienced in exemplary fashion, the Summer Academy moves on to Cottbus. Here, the important cooperation with the Brandenburg State Museum of Modern Art provides deep insights into a classical art collection whose history differs greatly from Beeskow. Finally, results and ideas for the future will be formulated at a concluding discussion at Cottbus University.

April Eisman comments: "With the Summer Academy for East German Art, we want to bring together both established and young experts to discuss the challenges we face in researching and writing about art from the GDR. We also want to build a network that can support scholars, in particular those who are just starting out, and to create resources to teach pupils and students about art from the GDR."

Angelika Weißbach adds: "An important instrument of the Summer Academy will be the concrete description of works of art. We want to approach the objects using the methods of History of Art by first taking a close look and then adding the political and social-historical aspects. We are very much looking forward to this intensive exchange with academics from different generations whose research topics are wide-ranging."

Summer Academy with the support of the Ostdeutsche Sparkassenstiftung

"Preserve, strengthen, inspire." The Ostdeutsche Sparkassenstiftung has been funding art, culture and Architectural Conservation in this spirit since 1996. The foundation is a joint effort of all member savings banks of the East German Savings Banks Association (OSV) in Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt.

A total of 2,538 projects have been funded, supported or realized together with the current 43 OSV savings banks. Around 116 million euros were available for this purpose from the Foundation's investment income, the supra-local special-purpose income from PS Lottery savings and the project-related additional donations from the savings banks and their affiliated companies. In Brandenburg alone, around 25 million euros of this was made available for 636 projects. The savings banks organization is one of the largest non-state sponsors of culture in Germany.