‘We were broke, but fascinated by freedom’: exhibition showcases East German artist Gabriele Stötzer

Dabei Sein und nicht schweigen (Show up and don’t be quiet) at the sprawling Martin Gropius Bau gallery in Berlin. Photograph: Gropius Bau View image in fullscreen Dabei Sein und nicht schweigen (Show up and don’t be quiet) at the sprawling Martin Gropius Bau gallery in Berlin. Photograph: Gropius Bau ‘We were broke, but fascinated by freedom’: exhibition showcases East German artist Gabriele Stötzer Show at Martin Gropius Bau gallery in Berlin is biggest ever celebration of an East German female artist in a state museum Gabriele Stötzer remembers the days when she had to decide: “Am I buying a sausage, or film for my Super 8 camera?” Stötzer was one of the most radical artists in communist East Germany , and her desire to create was born in defiance of and in spite of the material conditions and oppressive restrictions of the GDR regime. “We were broke, but we were totally fascinated by freedom,” she said. View image in fullscreen Gabriele Stötzer: ‘We made use of everything we experienced – our dreams, traumas, the exaltation, the humiliation.’ Photograph: Jens Kalaene/dpa Now 73, Stötzer 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 on display at the sprawling Martin Gropius Bau gallery in Berlin, where 150 of Stötzer’s works are being exhibited in a dedicated wing until 6 December. The title is taken from the book Stötzer wrote about her year spent locked up after protesting against the expatriation of dissident singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann . 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. View image in fullscreen A piece from the exhibition. Photograph: Gropius Bau “Living in a land already cordoned off from the rest of the world by the Berlin Wall , I found myself behind yet another set of walls,” she said, adding that she was lucky to have been young enough to find it interesting and to put that curiosity to use. “Our cell held 20 women … and we worked a three-shift schedule during the day. Art was bound up in my dream of another life.” Stötzer has been active for years as a contemporary witness and storyteller at Hoheneck, which is now a memorial museum dedicated to the incarceration and persecution of female political prisoners in the communist east. She does not mind being referred to as “East German”, but balks at being reduced to the label of “GDR artist”. “She’s been celebrated as an eyewitness to history but until now has never been celebrated as an artist in her own right – and this is what this show seeks to rectify,” said Julia Grosse, who curated the exhibition along with Christopher Wierling. In preparation for it, they visited Stötzer in her Erfurt flat, where her kitchen doubles up as her atelier, and where she had been storing her