GDR art-the sun seeks come to light

Fahl stands the star above the conveyor tower. “Sun above the shaft” is the name of the oil painting, which the Soviet artist Viktor Makejew painted in 1985. The title lets warm colors and glowing daylight to be expected, which the buddies welcomed underground after their work. The opposite is to be seen: an inhospitable scenery in grayscale, the sun above the silhouette of the shaft building a pale slice that has a cold and repellent. Was it what the “sun seeker” longed?

“Solve seeker” is the name of an exhibition that will be seen in Zwickau from April. Her title takes up a self -designation of the employees of the East German mining company Wismut, just like the title of a film by Konrad Wolf, which was completed in 1958, but then remained under closure for decades. In the early years of the Soviet, later Soviet-German stock corporation, which was considered a state in the state in the state of the Soviet, he describes too relentlessly. From 1946 it promoted on behalf of the occupying powers in the Ore Mountains and in Thuringia Uran, which was also used for the construction of nuclear weapons. Until the end of the GDR, there were more than 200,000 tons. The result was also an enormous environmental degree. Bundes own Wismut GmbH has been taking care of the legacies since 1991.

Of course, these included not only radioactive pits and heaps, the restoration of which has so far devoured around seven billion euros, but also an art collection that is as extensive as no other former GDR operation. It comprises 4028 works, including 259 paintings. Many showed mining motifs, but there are also landscapes, says Paul Kaiser from the Dresden Institute for Cultural Studies. Since the 1950s, the company has bought works of art and commissioned, organized plenary and awarded art prices. Many artists who worked for bismuth also directed circle in which miners artistically operated: “That was part of a self -made educational mandate.”

Kaiser has been dealing with the collection of bismuth for a decades and a half, which of course has to be considered a disadvantaged treasure. The pictures are currently stored, among other things, archive goods at the headquarters of Wismut GmbH in Chemnitz, but are not accessible: “This is not a show depot,” says Christian Gracza from the Wismuth Foundation. This was founded in 2021 to process the inheritance of the mining company, but has only had five employees so far. The most important project is currently a show system called »Schacht 371« in Aue-Bad Schlema and its digital presentation. According to Gracza, the capacities are missing to deal with the art collection. The newspaper »Le Monde Diplomatique« therefore spoke of »East Germany forgotten art treasures« in 2023.

The fact that they stayed in hidden for so long had another reason: shame. It was assumed that it was propaganda works that paid homage to the socialist state and made the work of bismuth appearing in rosy light. When Emperor curated two exhibitions in Chemnitz and Gera in 2013, in which parts of the collection were presented, there was talk of “uncertainty” and that the art location was “teased”. In the offenses, the debate about GDR art sounded, which was mainly dismissed in the all-German feuilleton of the 1990s as “state art”. Kaiser, however, points out that the reaction of the audience was already different back then. The show in Chemnitz was visited by 6000 people; Many would have remembered their own work biography or family history based on the works.

In the meantime, says Kaiser, the debate has turned further. The trigger for this is an “identity crisis” in which the country and its “highly polarized” society were. With a view of the GDR, the life performance of their residents also focuses; At the same time, problems with the transformation after 1989 are obvious. Art is no longer the medium, where the controversy about the evaluation of the GDR is fought out, but is discussed factually in all its facets, from state contract art to non -compliant works: »We can show them today without excuse us have to, ”says Kaiser.

In the case of the bismuth collection, this happens in the form of the exhibition “solar seeker”, which was also included in the official supporting program of the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz after some back and forth. Around 80 paintings and 150 graphic work are shown in the renovated halls of a former cotton mill built in 1896 on 1200 square meters. Kaiser emphasizes that the project is only possible in times of shrinking cultural budgets because the owner provides the rooms free of charge, the Sparkasse appears as a sponsor and members of the Zwickau Art Association on a voluntary basis and supervision.

A very differentiated inventory will be seen. Especially in the early years, bismuth had actually acquired many works that could be seen as the “jubilee celebration” of its work and the state; Portraits of miners were not uncommon for “hero images”. However, the stocks from later decades are “anything but a glorification”. The adverse everyday work and the catastrophic effects of mining on the environment are increasingly being discussed. Because of the special history of the company, Soviet artists were often invited, for example Makejew, who painted the “sun over the shaft” four years before the end of the GDR: “Their works are often the most critical,” says Kaiser.

Today, many of the pictures of their rediscovery are waiting. Only a few share the fate of the mural “peaceful use of nuclear power”. The 16 by 12 meter work by Werner Petzold, who carried out many orders from Wismut before he went to the West in 1983 and began to paint altarpieces, was initially hung on one of her administrative buildings, which was torn down in 2006. Today it is attached not far from Ronneburg on a steel frame on a green meadow, as one of a few visible certificates of a collection that, thanks to the Zwickauer show, should now move back into consciousness.

»Sun seeker. Art and mining of bismuth «, until August 10, 2025, historic cotton mill, Pölbitzer Str. 9, 08058 Zwickau, Tue.-Fri. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sat./Sun. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., 8 €, reduced € 5

“We can show the works today without having to apologize for it.”

Paul KaiserArt scientist