The dissolution of the parties and mass organizations in the GDR also affected the works of art that were in their possession. The lost-and-found principle determined who the new owners of the works would be. Art was moved to new locations for the purposes of storage, administration and research. The holdings of the federal states of Berlin, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania therefore ended up in Beeskow.
Angelika Weißbach conducted an inventory from 2015 to 2019 and recorded 17,500 works of art. In the video, the research assistant tells the story of how the inventory came about and names a few works where references to international contacts can be made. However, examples can be found in all genres, especially in the themes of "artists' journeys," "solidarity," and "friendship among nations." Geographical references are also recognizable, with Chile and Vietnam being particularly prominent in Beeskow.
Angelika Weißbach is an art historian and research assistant at the Museum Utopia and Everyday Life, where she is responsible for the art holdings. Her doctorate on the topic Frühstück im Freien – Freiräume im offiziellen Kunstbetrieb der DDR am Beispiel des Leonhardi Museums in Dresdens 1963-1990 (Breakfast in the Open Air - Free Spaces in the Official Art Business of the GDR on the example of the Leonhardi Museum in Dresden 1963-1990) is publicly accessible online https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/3b98119b-6bbb-47b5-9eaf-cfd18f60788f/381343.pdf
The work Chile 1973 by Heidrun Hegewald described in the video is available online on the page of the Bildatlas: Kunst in der DDR: https://www.bildatlas-ddr-kunst.de/item/1128. The painting Das jüngste Gericht (1987) by Christoph Wetzel under the following link: https://www.bildatlas-ddr-kunst.de/item/608
Artworks seen in the video background
left: Christian Heinze, Aus dem Leben Ernst Thälmanns, 1982/83, oil on canvas/chipboard, 280x522 cm / Museum Utopie und Alltag, Beeskow
right: Sibylle Fendt: Erika Stürmer Alex, 2021, photography / Sibylle Fendt, Berlin 2022
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