Culture in the Cold War:

East German Art, Music and Film

This NEH Institute for College and University Teachers as well as professionals working in museums and other cultural institutions, Culture in the Cold War, took place at UMass Amherst from June 17 to July 14, 2018.

The the four-week Institute explored the role of the visual arts, music and film in socialist modernity. Selected topics—such as censorship and artistic freedom, the role of the state and surveillance, and race and gender in art and politics—present a compelling historical perspective on issues being raised in classrooms today. The inter-disciplinary program broke new ground in the study of culture during the Cold War through a sustained examination of the role of arts and artists to the case of East Germany.

Institute’s faculty: Skyler Arndt-Briggs and Barton Byg (co-directors, UMass Amherst), Seán Allan (St Andrews), Joy Calico (Vanderbilt), April Eisman (Iowa State), Elaine Kelly (Edinburgh) and Johanna Yunker (UMass).

DEFA Film Library hosting staff: Hiltrud Schulz, film curator, production and outreach manager; Kathryn Julian and Konstanze Schiller, program assistants / institute coordinators.

The Institute with 25 participants opened with the keynote lecture “Five Myths about East German Visual Art” by April Eisman (Iowa State University).

At the Institute, participants:

• Focused on learning and teaching about culture in the Cold War in dynamic seminar discussions
• Compared canonical and new approaches in art history, musicology, and German and film studies   
• Critically assessed a wide selection of primary and secondary materials for teaching
• Built lasting communities of inquiry and development of future projects

Participants comprised a robust mix of college and university faculty, advanced graduate students, and professionals working in cultural institutions —all intersecting in multiple disciplines, including film studies, art history, musicology, German studies, history, performance studies, and library, museum and archival studies. 

Participants comprised a robust mix of college and university faculty, advanced graduate students, and professionals working in cultural institutions —all intersecting in multiple disciplines, including film studies, art history, musicology, German studies, history, performance studies, and library, museum and archival studies. 

The Institute took place in tandem with a film festival and the first U.S. solo exhibition of (East) German graphic artist Anke Feuchtenberger.

Film Festival: The festival opened with the North American premiere of the documentary Dusk: 1950s East Berlin Bohemia (1993, dir. Peter Voigt) sponsored by the Goethe-Institut Boston. The festival program included 16 feature films, 33 full-length and short documentaries and 3 animation films, most of the screenings were North American premieres. Each film or film program was introduced by one of the faculty members.

Art exhibition: Mutterkuchen: Selected Works of Anke Feuchtenberger was curated by UMass MFA student Bibiana Medkova and took place at the UMass Olver Design Building Gallery from June 26 to July 13, 2018. The works were selected from a collection of posters and art works donated to the DEFA Film Library and the University of Massachusetts Amherst by (East) German filmmaker Jörg Foth in 2018. The donation is now part of SCUA at UMass.