Three artists who moved from East Germany to West Berlin in the mid-1980s are the focus of this documentary. Cornelia Schleime, Hans-Hendrik Grimmling and Hans Scheib were part of the alternative art scene in East Germany and resisted state dictates. But what did the change to a new social system mean for their artistic identity? How did their strategies and perspectives change in the West, where market mechanisms and a different culture of self-staging suddenly prevailed? In THE PAINTER CAME FROM FOREIGN LANDS, Lutz Dammbeck, who himself moved from East Germany to the West in 1986, examines the challenges and adaptation processes of these artists. The documentary, produced for SWF and WDR, was broadcast on West German television in 1989 and is an important contemporary document. It not only sheds light on the transformation of the art world in both German states, but also on the question of artistic freedom in the field of tension between ideology and the market. Using a mixture of interviews, archive material and personal reflections, Dammbeck shows how art has to be redefined in a new environment – and what uncertainties and possibilities this process entails.
Icons & Media Art
42min
0
DE
A portrait of the artists Cornelia Schleime, Hans-Hendrik Grimmling and Hans Scheib who left the GDR for West Berlin between 1984 and 1985.
Three artists who moved from East Germany to West Berlin in the mid-1980s are the focus of this documentary. Cornelia Schleime, Hans-Hendrik Grimmling and Hans Scheib were part of the alternative art scene in East Germany and resisted state dictates. But what did the change to a new social system mean for their artistic identity? How did their strategies and perspectives change in the West, where market mechanisms and a different culture of self-staging suddenly prevailed?
In THE PAINTER CAME FROM FOREIGN LANDS, Lutz Dammbeck, who himself moved from East Germany to the West in 1986, examines the challenges and adaptation processes of these artists. The documentary, produced for SWF and WDR, was broadcast on West German television in 1989 and is an important contemporary document. It not only sheds light on the transformation of the art world in both German states, but also on the question of artistic freedom in the field of tension between ideology and the market.
Using a mixture of interviews, archive material and personal reflections, Dammbeck shows how art has to be redefined in a new environment – and what uncertainties and possibilities this process entails.