Feminist Painting and Experimental Art in East Germany

The Case of Angela Hampel
Erscheinungsjahr 2026
ISBN: 978-1-64014-233-6
Verlag: Camden House

Buch, Englisch, Band 258, 350 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 902 g

Reihe: Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture

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 November 1988, artist Angela Hampel stood before East Germany's Artists Union and challenged its male-dominated leadership, demanding gender parity across the art world. This bold act was one of many in a remarkable career that defies easy categorization: In East Germany, Hampel was both an officially recognized painter whose work represented the country in major exhibitions at home and abroad-such as the Venice Biennale-and an experimental artist creating provocative installations in "alternative" venues.

Through Hampel's life and work, this groundbreaking study dismantles persistent stereotypes about East German art. Neither a state propagandist nor a dissident, Hampel-like many of her generation-believed in reforming socialism from within. Her punk-inspired, Neoexpressionist paintings of powerful women from mythology and the Bible together with her collaborative installations engaged critically with patriarchy, environmentalism, and other social issues that resonate to the present day.

Drawing on over twenty years of research, hundreds of interviews, and extensive archival work, this book reveals an East German art world far more complex than Western scholarship has acknowledged. Here, experimental and traditional art coexisted, women artists thrived in greater numbers than in the West, and millions attended national exhibitions. This is the story of an artist committed to socialist ideals who took to the streets in 1989 not to overthrow the system, but to improve it.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Eisman, April A.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunstgeschichte Kunstgeschichte: 20./21. Jahrhundert
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Deutsche Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunst, allgemein Einzelne Künstler: Biographien, Monografien

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1: Becoming an Artist in East Germany: Angela Hampel, 1956-82
Chapter 2: Painting Women in East Germany
Chapter 3: Women Inside/Outside the Experimental Art Scene
Chapter 4: Positively Critical: The "Heart" of Hampel's Experimental Art
Chapter 5: "To Make People Think": Dialogical Art in East Germany
Chapter 6: After the Berlin Wall
Conclusion
Bibliography of Cited Materials
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Eisman, April A.
APRIL A. EISMAN is Professor of Art History at Iowa State University.