"Postcards & Artists' Cards", Arkade Gallery, East Berlin, November 4-30, 1978
Text by Josephine-Marie Rauer
In 1978, under direction of Klaus Werner (1940-2010), the Arkade Gallery of the State Art Trade in East Berlin presented international mail art for the first time in the GDR in the exhibition "Postcards and Artists' Cards". Robert Rehfeldt (1931-1993), a well-known mail art artist from the GDR, and Rolf Staeck (1943-), brother of the West German artist and publisher Klaus Staeck (1938-), were essential in organizing the exhibition. A large portion of the 1600 works on display were historical cards, which were intended to provide an overview from the beginnings of the picture postcard in the 19th century.
Numerous artists responded to a call for participation by Rolf Staeck, so that around 450 cards representing the contemporary mail art scene of the 1970s could be exhibited. The GDR's state security watched Klaus Werner's projects and large parts of the mail art scene with suspicion. Werner therefore had the idea of using the art-historical aspect of the postcards to "distract" from the contemporary mail art works and thus achieve toleration of the presentation. Nevertheless, the project came to the attention of the Stasi: Rolf Staeck's Stasi file attributed an "anti-socialist character" to the exhibition and classified the connection to his brother in West Germany as hostile. This ultimately led to Klaus Werner being dismissed as director of the gallery in 1981 and it was subsequently closed.
Despite the circumstances, cards by artists such as Peter Below (West Germany, 1949-), Julien Blaine (France, 1942-), Graciela Gutierrez Marx (Argentina, 1945-2022) and Bálint Szombathy (former Yugoslavia, 1950-) made it to East Berlin. Cards from postcard editions and unique items were sent in. The exhibition also included cards from unknown senders. The Arkade Gallery's postcard campaign clearly demonstrates the important role that Mail Art had in the creative exchange between artists from the GDR and their international colleagues. The network around Robert Rehfeldt and the Staeck brothers enabled the participants to engage in a critical dialog. The postcard collection from the Arkade Gallery, which is now in the Kupferstich-Kabinett Dresden, contains works on topics such as climate change, criticism of bureaucratic institutions, war and militarism, and commodity fetishism.
Josephine-Marie Rauer is art historian. Since 2021 she has been working at the Kupferstich-Kabinett Dresden in the department for 20th and 21st century art.
Some cards from the collection have been on display from 10.11.2023 to 18.02.2024 in the exhibition "Postcard Kilometer. Artists' cards in Europe from 1960 until today" at the Kupferstich-Kabinett Dresden: https://kupferstich-kabinett.skd.museum/en/exhibitions/postkartenkilometer-kuenstlerkarten-in-europa-von-1960-bis-heute/
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