Michael Boehlke Henryk Gericke

For ten years, from 1979 to 1989, the Punk uproar endured in the GDR.

Whilst the social deprivation suffered by British teenagers found expression in the slogan “No Future”, the socialist misery of the strictly regulated lives of young people in the GDR could be said to originate with rather too much of a future. The unwilling recruits of the Party’s Combat Reserve started taking liberties hitherto unimaginable in the context of the GDR. Unflinchingly, they were challenging a state whose fierce resistance to the youngsters’ rather innocent anger left some of them with troubled biographies. Punks wrote a bizarre chapter in the GDR’s history, alight with the non-conformist eccentricity of their actions, and obscured by the secret services’ vicious persecution.

The resulting energetic release soon spread out of dingy basements and scarce meeting places into the studios of younger artists as well. Thus Punk became a formative influence in many budding artists’ works and lives, and once absorbed by an, albeit elusive, counter culture, the movement even disseminated into reserves of the socialist high-brow, among the students at state art schools and universities.

Regardless of whether they were artists or not, for many of its proponents Punk in the GDR represented no more than a transitionary space. Emigration or the collapse of the GDR did not halt their lives, and their biographies continued to progress in the most diverse directions and turns.

The exhibition, designed by artist Andrea Pichl, will present a historic background into the relevant cultural environment, as well as original artwork.

There will be painting, amongst others, from Ronald Lippok Mita Schamal and C.D.Spinne, drawing (“flanzendörfer”, Ralf Kerbach, Cornelia Schleime), print graphics (Matthias „Baader“ Holst, Bert Papenfuß), photography (Christiane Eisler, Harald Hauswald, Helga Paris), as well as super 8 film (Tohm di Roes, Zhomas Frydetzki and others), collages and objects (Robert Lippok), and miscellaneous pop culture items such as record covers, buttons, flyers and posters.

Visitors will have the opportunity to listen to rare, original recordings of music by GDR Punk bands in specially provided audio spaces.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a comprehensive programme of events and a catalogue publication.Mit zahlreichen Abbildungen. Orig.-Karton mit illustr. Schutzumschlag. Erste Ausgabe. - Katalog zur aufsehenerregenden Ausstellung "Too much future" in Berlin, über die Punk-Szene in der DDR. Mit Texten über die Anfänge der Punkbewegung, die Verbindungen zwischen Punk und Kirche in der DDR, etc. Der üppig bebilderte Katalog zitiert mit gewagtem Layout die Punkästhetik und präsentiert eine Fülle an Fotos, Dokumenten, Flyern und Bilder der Protagonisten der Szene. Das Register enthält Angaben zu ca. 100 DDR-Punkbands, mit Line-Ups und Herkunft. Die Texte sind zweisprachig, in Deutsch und Englisch.… (mer)