Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany

10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post Central & Eastern Europe | Art and the Political: The 1960s and 1970s Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany Meghan Forbes August 14, 2019 This essay is a rare glimpse into the alternative publications of East Germany in the 1980s. Through an overview of the magazines of the period, and a close reading of various images, advertisements, and visual poetry within them, this essay underscores the vibrancy of the underground print scene in the last decade of the GDR. https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 1/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post Christoph Tannert. “Schaden Landschaft Kunst.” In Der Schaden 12 (1986). Saxon State and University Library (SLUB)/Deutsche Fotothek In the 1980s, alternative publications flourished in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), originating in such cities as Berlin, Dresden, Halle, and Leipzig. The energy of the country’s final decade is captured in these underground periodicals, which incorporate a wide assortment of materials (from twine and foil to high-quality printing paper) and employ diverse print modes (including typewriting, silk screen, and lithography) and binding methods (from fine Japanese bindings to staples and brads). While the focus of this article is magazines that exhibit these properties, there are also publications that reflect a basically professional, relatively uniform publishing standard (such as Ariadnefabrik), and even the high-end quality of artists’ books (for example, Sascha Anderson’s Poe Sie Al Bum 1 ). Some magazines ran for only a few issues while others lasted several years. They all operated outside of the larger field of state-supported art production in the GDR, however, and were not affiliated with officially sanctioned publishing houses. https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 2/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post Helgard Sauer, a librarian at the Saxon State and University Library (SLUB) in Dresden who began to collect these underground publications pretty much as they were being produced, 2 later underscored that they operated “independent of the censure,” and that “there were no borders set to artistic creativity by this form of communication.” 3 And yet, as she continued, “In the cultural policy of the GDR, such an artists’ exchange [of material for publication] outside state surveillance was not ordained, and thus was regarded as subversive.” 4 Thus, these publications, which Sauer alternatively calls “Künstlerbücher” (artists’ books), “Künstlerzeitschriften” (artist’s magazines), “Kleinzeitschriften” (little magazines), and “alternative Künstlerkommunikation” (alternative artists’ communications), collectively represent one aspect of an art scene in East Germany that managed to exist outside of state-supported structures and to remain relatively unhindered. 5 The earliest publications, such as Entwerter Oder and UND (both first published in 1982) and U.S.W., were essentially “assemblings.” 6 As Sauer wrote in 1990, “The principle behind these editions is simple: interested artists would send their contributions (text, graphics, collages, photographs, etc.) for the agreed-upon issue to the editor, who assembles the work into publication form and then sends a copy back to the participating artist.” 7 The wide range of print and publication processes employed, and the creative use of materials, seemingly as both a matter of economy and a means of experimentation, were integral to the particular aesthetics of the GDR underground magazines. The publications I will focus on here are precisely those that embrace an aesthetic of scarcity and “deformation,” and that pose their assembled and irregular contents not as limited by material circumstances, but rather as incredibly dynamic objects enriched by haptic, textual, and visual qualities. The magazine Der Schaden exemplifies deformation as an intentional artistic practice, a notion embodied in the publication’s name, which translates as “damage” or “loss.” Its text is mostly typewritten on tissue paper, and in samizdat fashion, has been reproduced using carbon paper. 8 The cover of issue ten (1986) is a collage of painted tissue paper, and the pages are bound together with five staples unevenly spaced along its length, about a half an inch from the left-hand side, and sewn through with twine. In issue twelve, also from 1986, poems are stamped directly onto foil paper, rendering them nearly illegible. Elsewhere, black carbon paper has been inserted, and thus the very material aiding in reproducing the publication is a feature of its contents. When I was in Dresden in January of this year, I had the opportunity to visit the SLUB and to see firsthand Der Schaden and a few other magazines. There was not sufficient time to study the full collection, which the library has also digitized, 9 but the following preliminary notes and observations mark the beginning of what I hope will become a https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 3/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post larger research project. I aim to explore in the short space of this essay the place these magazines occupy in the history of underground publishing behind the Iron Curtain, and some of the ways in which they function as a record of art created in the GDR leading up to and just following the fall of the Berlin Wall. As the examples below will illustrate, these publications, fascinating material objects in their own right, also comprise a historical archive of the East German art scene as it was playing out—of the punk scene, gallery installations, and various performances that were taking place contemporaneously. The hodge-podge, DIY, and interdisciplinary approach of the underground art world in East Germany is reflected in the look and content of its publications. In a short text on the “unofficial” and “non-licensed” print magazines from the GDR, Ilona Schäkel emphasizes both their textual and visual components, noting that with regards to the “collaboration of different artists and media in one collective creative process, border crossing and multimediality were significant characteristics of the young art of the GDR in general.” 10 Sauer also details the varied contents of these publications, which include “graphic arts, typography, visual poetry, photography, happenings, performance, and Fluxus,” 11 and comments on the connection between this multimedial diversity and how the print publications were organically integrated into the larger, variegated art scene: “Besides the publication of the magazine issues, readings, round tables, exhibitions and also concerts were organized. This combination of different possibilities for art communication is characteristic of the multimedial development of art in the eighties in the GDR.” 12 A single issue of one of these magazines might include, for instance, photographic documentation, advertisements, and reviews of exhibitions in Berlin, Dresden, or Leipzig, the combination evoking the vibrancy of the underground art scene in the late 1980s and serving as invaluable primary documentation for anyone conducting research on it today. One artist who played a key role in recording the underground culture of East Germany was the photographer Karin Wieckhorst, who still based in Leipzig, was the subject of a retrospective at the Museum der bildenden Künste there last summer. Anschlag 6 features a taped-together triptych of her photographs, which when unfolded, reveals three scenes from the staging of Lutz Dammbeck’s REALfilm, a so-called media collage, from May 14, 1986. 13 In this same issue, there is an interview with the artist Angela Hampel, and a drawing by her of a naked punk woman with a Mohawk who is brandishing a snake. These examples, among others, suggest the immersive involvement of women in the GDR art scene, even though they were in the minority and have not been prominent in recent histories and exhibitions. 14 https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 4/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 5/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post Karin Wieckhorst. Photo-documentation of Lutz Dammbeck’s REALfilm. In Anschlag 6 (1986). Saxon State and University Library (SLUB)/Deutsche Fotothek https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 6/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post Cover of Anschlag 5 (1986). The Kunstbibliothek Berlin (KuBi) The previous issue of Anschlag, which has a black vinyl cover, includes another photograph by Wieckhorst, this one of a punk woman in a leather jacket and spiked dog https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 7/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post collar, who, cigarette in hand, is having her shaved head caressed by a man with a Mohawk, who wears a chain belt and black bandana. It is both an intimate portrait of two young people looking impossibly cool, and documentation of the crowd at a significant event: Intermedia 1, a two-day happening that took place in Coswig on June 1–2, 1985, and was advertised as a “Klangbild/Farbklang.” 15 In the background of the photograph, one can see hand-painted “Rollos” (roller blinds, or shades), a popular painting surface in the GDR because the cheap household objects could easily be stored and discreetly transported. 16 Apparently there were more than forty of these Rollos installed in Coswig for the event, which also featured jazz, “Hard Pop,” “Tanz und Projektion” (dance and projections), and “Musikbrigade” concerts. Advertisement for Intermedia 1—Jazz in Coswig. In U.S.W. special issue (1985). Saxon State and University Library (SLUB)/Deutsche Fotothek An invaluable record of the happening is captured in a publication titled Intermedia, which was billed as a special issue of U.S.W. and served as a catalogue for the event. At the back of the issue, there is an envelope containing seventeen black-and-white photographs of the installed Rollos, and a list of the artists who participated. The bound https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 8/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post contents comprise photos of the event’s performers and audience members in action, including more images by Karin Wieckhorst. Karin Wieckhorst. Photo-documentation of Intermedia I, Coswig, 1985. In Anschlag 5 (1986). Saxon State and University Library (SLUB)/Deutsche Fotothek https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 9/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post Karin Wieckhorst. “Punks im Gespräch” (Punks in Conversation). In U.S.W. special issue (1985). Saxon State and University Library (SLUB)/Deutsche Fotothek Another set of photographs from Intermedia is by Else Gabriel, one of four members of the artists’ group known as the Auto-Perforationists. 17 Gabriel participated in many GDR happenings during the eighties, including, perhaps most famously, Allez! Arrest! with Micha Brendel and Rainer Görß, as part of the exhibition After Beuys at the prominent East German GALERIE EIGEN + ART in Leipzig. 18 Allez! Arrest!, which took place over ten days in the spring of 1988, was also documented in several alternative magazines. Wieckhorst was again on the scene, and her series of black-and-white photographs, which are reproduced in Anschlag 10, 19 capture aspects of what was a multifaceted event including installations, concerts, and performance art. Extensive textual detail about Allez! Arrest! is provided in articles by artist Olaf Nicolai, art historian Dirk Schümann, and gallerist Judy Lybke, and Gabriel herself contributed a multipage schedule of events. The happening is documented in a special photography issue of Entwerter Oder, and its representation in these various publications has, no doubt, been a factor in its relative visibility within the history of GDR art today. https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 10/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post Else Gabriel. “Hinterbühne” (Backstage). In U.S.W. special issue (1985). Saxon State and University Library (SLUB)/Deutsche Fotothek https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 11/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post Karin Wieckhorst. “Allez! Arrest!” 1988. In Anschlag 10 (1989). Saxon State and University Library (SLUB)/Deutsche Fotothek Production of these publications petered out after 1989 (though, as Sauer notes, this period also marked an uptick in library requests to view the publications). 20 Common Sense, published in only two issues in 1989 and 1990 in Halle, documents this period of transition in real time. The first issue is stunningly creative in its execution, with sewn-in, glued, and torn-paper elements, collage, blind letterpress printing, lengthier articles, and tiny visual poems. The combination lends a DIY element to the publication, which was nevertheless professionally bound by the Buchbinderei Steffen Stolze (today apparently still operational in the town of Hettstedt). The opening pages of the first issue of Common Sense feature a black-and-white photograph by Ernst Goldberg of a slogan that, painted on a wall, reads “35 Jahre DDR” (35 Years of the GDR). But the image has been altered, with the number 35 slashed out in red paint, and the number 40 painted next to it. Though the issue came out in 1989, it does not anticipate the fall of the Berlin Wall, which took place soon after, on November 9, 1989. When the second and final issue of Common Sense—dubbed an “Edition Augenweide” (Eyesore Edition)—was published after German reunification, the moment of transition is naturally central to the contents. In an introduction, now typed on a computer and signed “November 1990,” Jörg Kowalski, one of the editors, looks back https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 12/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post over the year since the border wall was dismantled and asks, “What right to still exist do alternative, independent book projects now have?” 21 It would seem a somewhat facetious question as, indeed, Common Sense was still alive and kicking as he wrote. In general, the second issue looks like the first—again, various papers and printing processes have been employed, a haiku is paperclipped in, and collage and torn-paper elements are features. But this issue of the publication would also be the last, and a closer look at its contents reveals how it reflects upon the change of state. On one page, in a work titled “AKTeneinSICHT” (Record Inspection), Henry Günther has effaced what appears to be his Stasi file, rendering the Xeroxed text nearly illegible with thick black lines. Elsewhere, an advertisement for a “GDR Flea market” is pasted in, calling on “Friends from East Germany” to sell their belongings and handicrafts “for hard German marks” in the days and months just after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Kowalski has emphasized the words “handicrafts” and “sell” by highlighting them in pen, stamped the words “Found Poetry” below the leaflet, and signed his name. 22 In a work by Hans-Georg Sehrt called “Ein Gespenst ging um” (A Ghost Was Here), a tatter of the East German flag has been pasted into a visual poem of repeating letters of the alphabet. Advertisement for Uni/vers(;). In Common Sense 1 (1989). Saxon State and University Library (SLUB)/Deutsche Fotothek https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 13/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post Kowalski was also an editor of UNI/vers(;), another Halle-based publication that continued well into the period of German Reunification. Advertised at the back of the first issue of Common Sense, it is described as “the international forum for new tendencies in visual poetry,” and purported to have editors from the GDR, Chile, and France—contesting an essentialist notion that artists operating in East Germany were not part of an international network. But equally or even more importantly, the magazine, which operated from 1987 through 1995, transmitted information and forged connections within the underground art scene of the GDR. The MoMA Library has a full set of UNI/vers(;) among its holdings, bringing the Museum, at least modestly, into the history of collecting alternative publications from the East Germany. 23 Guillermo Deisler. Cover wrapping for Uni/vers(;) 5 (1989–90). The Museum of Modern Art Library https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 14/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post Title page for Uni/vers(;) 5 (1989–90). The Museum of Modern Art Library https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 15/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post Serge Segay. “Zaumailart.” In Uni/vers(;) 5 (1989–90). The Museum of Modern Art Library https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 16/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post György Galántai. Artpool postcard. In Uni/vers(;) 5 (1989–90). The Museum of Modern Art Library https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 17/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post Guillermo Deisler. In Uni/vers(;) 5 (1989-1990). The Museum of Modern Art Library https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 18/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post “commonsense.” In Uni/vers(;) 6 (1990). The Museum of Modern Art Library https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 19/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post Jörg Kowalski.“Edition Augenweide (Eyesore Edition): Found Poetry.” In Uni/vers(;) 10 (1990). The Museum of Modern Art Library As the galactic scope of its name suggests, UNI/vers(;) perhaps most fully represents a more international frame within which to consider the East German alternative publications. Three collaborators in addition to Kowalski are associated with the early issues: Gregorio Berchenko, Ulrich Tarlatt, and Guillermo Deisler. Deisler, who made his way to Halle from Chile via France and Bulgaria, was the main progenitor of the project, and it is to his address that potential contributors were instructed to send submissions. Active at the tail end of the movement, UNI/vers(;) fits within the Fluxus, mail art networks active between Latin America and Central Europe. 24 Described as a “portfolio,” each issue features the work of approximately forty artists. The magazine was typically packaged in a carton casing with a collaged cover and bound in twine, though there is some variation, as in the first issue, which was tucked into brown paper and sealed at the top with metal brads. 25 Potential contributors to a particular issue were instructed (as in the advert in Common Sense) to send one hundred distinct copies of their work to Deisler for inclusion; submissions typically came from Europe, but others hailed from Latin America, the United States, Australia, and Japan. The contents were packaged together as distinct, loose items. In terms that parallel Sauer’s description of the 1980s GDR alternative publications cited earlier in this essay, UNI/vers(;) claimed to “offer an opportunity, without influence, censor, or restriction, to bring together artistic originals. In the best of cases, these are works of simultaneous poetry, CO/ART, or a collective, poetic form, that cut across distance to reach each other.” 26 This statement again emphasizes the lack of censorship as a creative mode by which to produce and propagate alternative art and poetry, which, in the case of UNI/vers(;)truly represents a simultaneously international and translocal network. Thanks to the preservation of the various publications discussed here in such locations as the SLUB in Dresden and the Kunstbibliothek in Berlin, and to a lesser extent, the MoMA Library, an international group of interested researchers continues to have access to this primary documentation, and thus the capacity to learn more about a neglected aspect of German art history. It remains to be further considered how a better accommodation of East German printed matter in the overall history of German art practices of the late twentieth century might in turn adjust the existing discourse in the more established field. The digitization of many of these magazines by the SLUB is an invaluable resource, but there is no substitute for experiencing the deeply haptic qualities of these uncanny publications in person. More frequent exhibition of these materials would be a welcome approach. https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 20/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post More in this theme The Americas | Art and the Political: The 1960s and 1970s The Unhappy Ambiguity of Clemente Padín: Politics and Polysemy in Latin American Mail Art In this essay, Michaëla de Lacaze engages in a close reading of Happy Bicentennial (1976), one of the most radical pieces of mail art created by artist and poet Clemente Padín during the Uruguayan authoritarian regime of the 1970s. Michaëla de Lacaze https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 21/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post Central & Eastern Europe | Art and the Political: The 1960s and 1970s Maximum Profit—Minimum Time Raised during the socialist period of the former Yugoslavia, Irena Lagator Pejović examines two case studies of Yugoslav art and architecture that provide insights into Montenegro’s transition to neoliberalism. Irena Lagator Pejović https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 22/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post The Americas | Art and the Political: The 1960s and 1970s Restaging Disappearance: The Missing Archives of Studios Korda Karen Grimson comments on the inaccessibility of national archives in Cuba and questions art’s ability to contest censorship and battle the state of “disinformation” that has afflicted Cuban society for decades. Karen Grimson View all in this theme Subscribe to our newsletter https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 23/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post Subscribe to our newsletter Related Content Central & Eastern Europe Screening Series Part 3: From Matter to Data: Ecology of Infrastructures Artists reflect on the environmental damage caused by socialist modernization and capitalist industrialization. Inga Lāce and Lukas Brasiskis https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 24/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post Central & Eastern Europe Screening Series Part 2: From Matter to Data: Ecology of Infrastructures Artists reflect on the intersections between historic Soviet architecture and newly built infrastructures. Inga Lāce and Lukas Brasiskis https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 25/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post Central & Eastern Europe Screening Series: From Matter to Data: Ecology of Infrastructures Artists reflect upon the role infrastructures of energy play in implementation of (geo)politics and emphasize the effects that exerts on the environment. Lukas Brasiskis and Inga Lāce Top notes on art in a global context https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 26/27 10/15/2020 Underground Publishing in the Last Decade of East Germany | post post is The Museum of Modern Art’s online resource devoted to art and the history of modernism in a global context. It is the public face of Contemporary and Modern Art Perspectives (C-MAP), a cross-departmental, internal research program at MoMA that fosters the multiyear study of art histories outside North America and Western Europe. Sign up for our newsletter Privacy Policy Terms & Conditions © 2020 The Museum of Modern Art https://post.moma.org/underground-publishing-in-the-last-decade-of-east-germany/ 27/27