Feminist Painting and Experimental Art in East Germany

Challenges the conventional view that East German artists were either loyal to the regime or hostile to it through the example of one of its most dynamic figures, the feminist painter and experimental artist Angela Hampel.

In recent years, a number of monographs about East German art have appeared in English-language scholarship, ending decades of neglect. The majority have emphasized the experimental art scene, often suggesting it was somehow separate from the official art world and presenting its artists as heroic dissidents. This book challenges such narratives, focusing on the remarkable career of the painter and experimental artist Angela Hampel (b. 1956). Her powerful Neoexpressionist prints and paintings of strong women from mythology and the Bible were exhibited on both sides of the Berlin Wall, including at the Venice Biennale, marking her as "official" by conventional categories. Yet she also created installations and performances, works typically associated with the "alternative" scene. Moreover, her experimental works, which explored women's and environmental issues, were shown in official venues in East Germany, disproving the belief that such works were taboo or existed only underground.

Like many East German artists and intellectuals, Hampel sought to reform rather than abandon the GDR, believing that socialist East Germany, and especially its commitment to gender equality, offered a valuable alternative to the West. With works that transcend the Cold War era, Hampel's career offers us insight into the complexity of the East German art world in the 1970s and 80s as well as the one in which we find ourselves today.