Bernhard Heisig and the Cultural Politics of East German Art
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BERNHARD HEISIG AND THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF EAST GERMAN ART by April A. Eisman BA, Lawrence University, 1994 MA, Courtauld Institute of Art, 1998 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Arts & Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2007 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH FACULTY OF ARTS & SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by April A. Eisman It was defended on April 27, 2007 and approved by Stephen Brockman, Professor, Dept of Modern Languages, Carnegie Mellon University Terry Smith, Professor, History of Art and Architecture Kathy Linduff, Professor, History of Art and Architecture Kirk Savage, Associate Professor, History of Art and Architecture Dissertation Advisor: Barbara McCloskey, Associate Professor, Hist. of Art and Architecture ii Copyright © by April A. Eisman 2007 iii BERNHARD HEISIG AND THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF EAST GERMAN ART April A. Eisman, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2007 This dissertation focuses on the (East) German artist Bernhard Heisig (b. 1925), one of the most important German artists of the twentieth century. In English-language scholarship, however, he is virtually unknown, the result of lingering Cold War-era stereotypes that presume East Germany had no art, merely political propaganda or kitsch. This study focuses, in particular, on a crucial but little understood moment in Heisig’s life and work, the decade between 1961 and 1971, a time when the style and subject matter for which he is best known today first emerged in his oeuvre. The introduction provides an overview of Heisig’s reception in East, West, and unified Germany that will show how Cold War-era thinking affected—and continues to affect—his reception. The second chapter focuses on his past as a teenage soldier in the Second World War and the emergence of explicit references to this past in his art in the early 1960s. A comparison of his work to that by other artists suggests that there was more to its emergence at this point in time than simply personal reflection. It also reveals how his own experiences affected his portrayal of the subject. The third, fourth, and fifth chapters focus on a number of controversies that centered on Heisig and his work in the mid and late 1960s. It was during these years that the very definition of art in East Germany was under discussion: What is Socialist Realism? Heisig was a key figure in these debates, especially as they played out in Leipzig. A close investigation of the four main controversies in which he was involved reveals an artist deeply engaged with the society in iv which he lived and worked. Rather than a uniformly repressive system, the East German cultural scene was one of negotiation, sometimes heated, between artists and cultural functionaries. By engaging in these debates, Heisig helped to change what art was in East Germany and developed the commitment to figuration, tradition, and allegory for which he is praised today. In the end, this dissertation will offer a deeper understanding of both the artist and art under Socialism. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE.................................................................................................................................VIII 1.0 INTRODUCTION: MULTIPLE HEISIGS............................................................... 1 1.1 EAST GERMAN SCHOLARSHIP.................................................................... 4 1.2 WEST GERMAN SCHOLARSHIP ................................................................ 15 1.3 THE RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION, 1989.............................................. 18 1.4 SCHOLARSHIP AFTER 1989......................................................................... 23 1.5 THIS DISSERTATION..................................................................................... 40 2.0 FIGHTING FASCISM .............................................................................................. 48 2.1 THE WAFFEN-SS............................................................................................. 50 2.2 BRESLAU AND THE END OF WORLD WAR II........................................ 57 2.3 A CHANGE IN THINKING............................................................................. 62 2.4 THE NAZI PAST IN EAST GERMAN ART, 1945-64.................................. 68 2.5 THE NAZI PAST AT THE LEIPZIG ACADEMY, 1964-65........................ 73 2.6 PERPETRATORS AND VICTIMS................................................................. 84 2.7 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 93 3.0 A CHANGE IN STYLE............................................................................................. 95 3.1 ART IN EAST(ERN) GERMANY, 1945-64 ................................................... 98 3.2 THE FIFTH CONGRESS OF THE VBKD (MARCH 23-25, 1964)........... 115 vi 3.3 HEISIG’S VIEWS ON ART, 1954-64 ........................................................... 123 3.4 IN THE WAKE OF THE CONGRESS......................................................... 133 3.5 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 148 4.0 ART IN THE CRUCIBLE: LEIPZIG, 1965 ......................................................... 153 4.1 THE HOTEL GERMANY MURALS ........................................................... 155 4.2 THE PARIS COMMUNE (1964/65)................................................................ 175 4.3 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 189 5.0 PAINTING FOR THE EAST, 1968-71 .................................................................. 197 5.1 FROM THE BRIGADE (1969) TO BRIGADIER II (1970) ......................... 200 5.2 LENIN (AND THE UNBELIEVING TIMOFEJ).......................................... 217 5.3 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 225 6.0 CONCLUSION......................................................................................................... 226 APPENDIX A............................................................................................................................ 239 APPENDIX B ............................................................................................................................ 240 APPENDIX C............................................................................................................................ 242 APPENDIX D............................................................................................................................ 243 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................... 248 vii PREFACE It was a cold, dark morning in Berlin in late January 2000 when I first “discovered” East German art. It was toward the end of my first internship at the Neue Nationalgalerie, where I had been working on an exhibition on Ernst Ludwig Kirchner or, more accurately, struggling with the German language. On this particular morning, the curator, Dr. Roland März, took me on a short trip, one of several in those months. This time, instead of donning hard hats as we had when we visited the inside of the Alte Nationalgalerie, then under major renovations, we descended into the basement of the Akademie der Künste on Pariser Platz. There in the relative darkness and amidst an obstacle course of lamps and equipment, people were scattered about on scaffolding, preparing to remove the murals from the walls. Reddish-brown wolves jumped out of the darkness in one room. Jaunty men in black sauntered along in another. The murals, I found out, were by Harald Metzkes, an artist from the former German Democratic Republic. The building I stood in had been the Akademie der Künste in East Berlin, and these rooms had been its canteen. In that moment, I realized three things: 1) I had never heard of this artist before yet, based on the effort I saw around me, he was clearly important, 2) I did not know the name of a single East German artist despite having studied modern German art, and 3) the art before me was not the heroic, happy worker-sort I expected from East German art (not that I had actually ever thought about East German art before that morning.) It was truly an viii epiphanic moment, one that led directly—albeit over the course of several years—to this dissertation. It is humbling to think of all the people who have helped me with this project since then and to whom I am now indebted. I am grateful to the many artists who have met with me, most especially Professor Bernhard Heisig and his family, Gudrun Brüne, Johannes Heisig, and Walter Eisler. They not only opened their homes and studios to me on numerous occasions, but also helped on a practical level – Frau Brüne shuttled me back and forth from the train station several times and Walter drove me to a vernissage in Coburg. I am thankful for their support of my work, their insight into art and life in the GDR, and the many catalogs they have given me. I would also like to thank Professor Heisig for his generosity, both in terms of his time and the various written permissions, books, and works of art. Early conversations with Sonja Eschefeld and heated ones with Roland Nicolaus, both artists active in Berlin before and after reunification, helped me to better understand the East German system. I am also grateful to Willi Sitte, Walter Womacka, Ursula Mattheuer-Neustadt,