| In its scope, Two and One: Printmaking
in Germany 1945-1990 was without precedent. It presented
the first comprehensive scholarly look at twentieth-century
printmaking in Germany from the end of World War II to the
present. Unlike other recent exhibitions in the United
States that reviewed
only the work of West German artists, this exhibition included
approximately 150 works from many well-known artists (Joseph
Beuys, Anselm Kiefer, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter), as well
as important lesser known artists (Gerhard Altenbourg)
from
both the former German Democratic Republic and the Federal
Republic of Germany. Together the works explored questions
of identity
and of continuity in the German artistic tradition. Organized
around six major categories, Survivors, Revivification,
Ideological Divide, Challenging Establishments, Neo-Expressionism,
and After the Wall: One and Two Germanys, and displayed
chronologically, the audience discovered through the medium
of print the many developments in the arts, aesthetics and
politics of a Germany that went from being politically and
physically
divided in 1949 to being reunited with the fall of the Berlin
wall in 1989.
A series of experimental films were screened in conjunction
with Two and One: Printmaking in Germany 1945-1990
(starting in October 2003) to further emphasize the multimedia
efforts of several of the exhibited artists who worked as
printmakers, performance artists and also filmmakers.
Two and One: A Symposium
October 18, 2003
A symposium exploring the interdisciplinary issues
surrounding the arts, philosophy, and postwar history
of
a divided and
then reunified Germany, accompanied the exhibition.
Moderated by Patricia G. Berman
Department of Art History, Wellesley College
Session I: 9:30am
- 12:30pm
Nicolas de Warren
Antiworld and Exile: Aesthetics in Postwar Germany
Department of Philosophy, Wellesley College
Christine Mehring
For Whom? Art and Politics in the German Sixties and
Seventies
Department of Art History, Yale University
Reinhold Heller
Two and One: Observations on the Graphic Arts in Two
Germanys, 1945-1990
Guest-Curator of the exhibition
Department of Art History and of Germanic Studies, University
of Chicago
Discussion: 11:45am - 12:30pm
Session II: 2:00pm - 5:00pm
Otto Piene
Sky Art
Artist and Professor Emeritus
Center for Advanced Visual Studies, MIT, Cambridge
Peter Nisbet
Just What Is It That Makes German Art So Different, So
Appealing?
Daimler-Benz Curator, Busch-Reisinger Museum,
Harvard
University Art Museum, Cambridge
Claus Löser
Crossing Points: The Independent Art Scene in
the Former GDR
Film Critic and Film Curator
Martin-Gropius Bau, Berlin
Discussion: 4:30pm - 5:00pm
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