Art of Two Germanys/Cold War Cultures

LACMA Features First U.S. Exhibition to Examine the Complexity of Art Developed During the Cold War.

For East and West Germany during the Cold War, the creation of art and its reception and theorization were closely linked to their respective political systems: the Western liberal democracy of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the Eastern communist dictatorship of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Reacting against the legacy of Nazism, both Germanys revived pre-World War II national artistic traditions. Yet they developed distinctive versions of modern and postmodern art—at times in accord with their political cultures, at other times in opposition to them.

Anselm Kiefer, Germany’s Spritual Heroes, 1973.

Wolf Vostell, Coca-Cola, 1961.

Wolfgang Mattheuer, Cain

See the slideshow at Artdaily.org