The Days Were Numbered

The Brandenburg State Museum of Modern Art (BLMK) presents the exhibition The Days Were Numbered, which brings together around 300 artists’ books and magazines from approximately 1980 to 1995. The exhibition at the Dieselkraftwerk Cottbus offers impressive insights into an artistic field that emerged in the tension between individual expressiveness and collective practice in the late GDR and the post-reunification years.

The exhibition, which spans all of the Dieselkraftwerk's exhibition spaces, is divided into six thematic chapters derived from the titles of the publications themselves: The Days Are Numbered, Language Spaces, Nature Under Pressure, Stones in the Sand, Voices of Silence, and Action = Hope. These keywords are simultaneously programmatic—they reflect the aesthetic, social, and utopian aspirations of the works.

The publications, mostly published in small and very small editions, include original graphic prints, hand-printed photographs, drawings, paintings, collages, paper folding, and sometimes even music cassettes. As intermedial and transdisciplinary productions, they operate at the intersection of visual art, literature, music, and performance. Some of these works can be unfolded into large-scale installations, thus indicating their character as “pocket-sized exhibitions.”

The focus is on the interweaving of individual and collaborative artistic work. Created in a time of cultural restrictions, the publications formulate not only aesthetic but, above all, socially utopian designs. They testify to an art practice that developed critical, poetic, and alternative worldviews within the closed system of the GDR. The presentation is complemented by photographs, drawings, and paintings that were created as preparatory works or as aftermaths of the publications. In addition, selected works—including the complete 17 issues of the magazine ”schaden”—will be made accessible in a new way through digital animations in the exhibition and the accompanying publication.

With works by Anschlag, Ariadnefabrik, Bizarre Städte, Braegen, Entwerter/Oder, Herzattacke, Liane, Mikado, Reizwolf, Schaden, Sno’Boy, Spinne, UND, U.S.W., Verwendung, Zweite Person, Sascha Anderson, Claus Bach, Micha Brendel, Lutz Dammbeck, Stefan Döring, Klaus Elle, Elke Erb, Lutz Fleischer, Rainer Görss, Durs Grünbein, Gino Hahnemann, Sabine Herrmann, Frieder Heinze, Matthias Baader Holst, Sabine Jahn, Johannes Jansen, Petra Kasten, Klaus Killisch, Helge Leiberg, Via Lewandowsky, Robert Lippok, Ronald Lippok, Oskar Manigk, Bert Papenfuß, Hans Scheuerecker, Christine Schlegel, Cornelia Schleime, Gabriele Stötzer, Olaf Wegewitz, Karin Wieckhorst, Lutz Wohlrab et al.

The exhibition catalog is published by Spector Books Leipzig. The exhibition is a cooperation with the Getty Research Institute Los Angeles and POESIE SCHMECKT GUT e.V., Jena