Current
The series of (mostly) peaceful revolutions that took down the Berlin Wall effectively ended state socialism in Eastern Europe, and brought not just a political but also a material transformation. Countless people who lived through socialism discarded the household and consumer items they had lived with and loved or hated for many years, as they finally had access to higher-standard goods. This exhibition presents the metamorphosis of household and consumer goods from objects of everyday life to items in a museum collection, by way of flea markets, and invites contemporary artists to position them in the here and now.
Proving that photography is no more “objective” than any other medium, two photographers with the same mission offer very different views of East Germany. Through reports published by Stern, unpublished photographs, and documents and photos from the Stasi archives (both photographers were closely monitored by the East German secret police), this exhibition highlights Thomas Höpker and Harald Schmitt’s very different approaches to East German life, culture, and society.
In the fall of 1981, Bill Aron, the “Dean” of American Jewish photographers, visited the cities of Leningrad, Minsk, and Moscow. In each city, Aron photographed the local synagogue – which served as the common ground for Soviet Jews who were trying to hold on to, or regain, their religious heritage – as well as Jews who wished to leave the country, the so-called refuseniks. He also made striking portraits of the Soviet Jewish population at home and in public life. Aron’s photos will be paired with artist Yevgeniy’s Fiks’s images and artifacts from Birobidzhan, the Jewish autonomous region in the Soviet Union near the border with China.
In addition to art and artifacts, museums present knowledge, aiming to simultaneously educate and entertain the public. But where do museums get their information from? And how do they turn historical facts into an exhibition narrative? Traversing the minefield of postmodern relativism, on the one hand, and “alternative facts,” on the other, this exhibition explores how “facts” are constructed while aiming to restore the arena for informed interpretation and conversation.
With their colorful surfaces and clear-cut symbols and images, flags and banners are effective carriers of unambiguous messages. At parades, party conventions, and demonstrations they convey a sense of political purpose and group identity. In the communist countries, flags symbolically represented the various organizations, institutions, and collectives that were considered the pillars of society. However, flags and banners can take on other, countercultural meanings as well. In the late 1980s, political dissidents cut out the socialist symbols at the center of the East German, Hungarian, and Romanian national flags. In this exhibition, the Wende Museum’s unique collection of Soviet Bloc flags will be paired with contemporary artwork, showcasing a wide range of uses for this medium.