Bridgehead. Dresden art - newly discovered

14.09. - 02.11.2019

East German art from the second half of the 20th century is currently undergoing a serious reassessment. This is clearly illustrated by the museum "discovery" of the art created there in the Soviet Occupation Zone, in the GDR and in reunified Germany - currently on view, for example, in major retrospectives at the Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf (until Jan. 5, 2020) and at the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig (until Nov. 3, 2019) - as well as by its integration into the canon of national and European art history. The art market is responding to this long overdue process of undisguised acceptance of the art created in eastern Germany with growing interest and increased demand. With the exhibition "Brückenkopf. Dresden Art - Rediscovered" Döbele Kunst offers a range of different positions of art from Dresden, which in density and quality is currently not to be seen in any other gallery. The unmistakable generational project of an autonomous art, turned away from the state and committed to modernism on its own path, which originated in Dresden, becomes exceedingly clear - partly with major works, by artists such as Hermann Glöckner, Max Uhlig, Stefan Plenkers, Ralf Kerbach, Angela Hampel and Elke Hopfe. Typical Dresden subjects such as Ralf Kerbach's Academy View of the Elbe Bridges from Brühl's Terrace, Angela Hampel's testimony to the neo-expressive awakening of an art scene in the 1980s that programmatically invoked the "Brücke" artists' group, or the inner freedom of the artist's life in Stefan Plenkers' masterful studio scenes stand alongside Elke Hopfe's draftsmanship. The works of Hermann Glöckner and Max Uhlig in particular focus on the spiritual place of the city on the Elbe. The pointed exhibition title "Bridgehead" not only emphasizes the development of the visual arts from eastern Germany, which is now also recognized in the western art world. It also applies in a special way to the strategic orientation of Döbele Kunst Mannheim. Since the gallery's founding, its protagonists have been committed to the mediation of East German art - during the division in Ravensburg and Stuttgart, after reunification in Dresden, and now, 30 years after the fall of the Wall, in Mannheim. Only in the grown continuity of proven change are circles able to close, from whose binding power this exhibition is inspired. Cordial invitation to the vernissage on Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 5:00 p.m., Leibnizstr. 26

read more