‘Another life’ Radical East German artist recognised in major show

Gabriele Stotzer remembers the days when she had to decide whether she was buying food or film for her Super 8 camera. One of the most radical artists in communist East Germany, she says her work was born out of a search for expression in defiance of the restrictions placed on her for decades by the GDR regime. “We were broke, but we were fascinated by freedom,” she says.

- Kate Connolly Berlin

At 73, Stotzer has her first major show at one of Germany’s foremost galleries for contemporary art, in what is the biggest ever celebration of an East German female artist in a state museum.

Dabei Sein und nicht schweigen (Show up and don’t be quiet) is taking place at Gropius Bau in Berlin, where 150 of Stotzer’s works are being exhibited in a dedicated wing until 6 December.

The title is taken from the book she wrote about her year locked up for her protest against the regime’s expatriation of the dissident singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann.

Stotzer said it was during her incarceration in the notorious women’s prison of Hoheneck in Saxony during the late 1970s that her artistic streak began to emerge.