IN DIALOGUE – New Insights
Tickets
With Ralf Kerbach and Eckhart Gillen
In the “New Insights” format, artists and researchers present their perspectives on the current exhibition IN DIALOGUE — Hasso Plattner Collection: Art from the GDR. The discussion tours will be moderated by the exhibition’s curator, Daniel Milnes.
Ralf Kerbach in the exhibition IN DIALOGUE – Hasso Plattner Collection: Art from the GDR in front of his artwork Dresdner Freunde [Dresden Friends], 1983–84. Hasso Plattner Collection © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024, Photo: Clemens Porikys
May 22, 2025, 5 PM
Ralf Kerbach in front of the painting Dresdner Freunde
In this edition, the artist Ralf Kerbach will talk about his painting Dresdner Freunde (1983/4). He will shed light on Dresden’s subculture in the late 1970s and early 1980s and discuss the change in perspective after his move to West Berlin in 1982.
Short biography
Ralf Kerbach was born in Dresden in 1956. From 1977 to 1979, he studied painting and graphic art at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts (HfBK) under Professor Gerhard Kettner. He was exmatriculated in 1979 after taking part in the controversial exhibition Dezennien – also known as the “Doors Exhibition”– at the Leonhardi Museum in Dresden. In the same year, he co-founded the punk band Zwitschermaschine, whose members included Cornelia Schleime, Matthias Zeidler and Wolfgang Grossmann.
In 1982, Kerbach moved to West Berlin, where he had a studio at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin-Kreuzberg from 1983 to 1985 and later in Berlin-Wedding. Between 1988 and 1990, he worked in a studio in Dio-et-Valquières near Montpellier. From 1992 to 2023, Ralf Kerbach was Professor of Painting and Graphics at the Dresden University of Fine Arts (HfBK). He has been a member of the Saxon Academy of Arts since 2010. Today Ralf Kerbach lives and works near Dresden.
June 20, 2025, 5 PM
Eckhart Gillen on Henry Schumann's Studio Conversations
In this edition, art historian and curator Eckhart Gillen will discuss Henry Schumann's Studio Conversations [Ateliergespräche] (1976). He will situate the book in the historical context of its creation and share his personal experiences of working with Henry Schumann.
Short biography
Eckhart J. Gillen is an art historian and freelance curator living in Berlin. Since the mid-1970s, he has organized exhibitions on American, Russian and German art of the 20th century, including
Images of Germany. Art from a Divided Country, 1997; Art of Two Germanys in Los Angeles, Nuremberg and Berlin 2009/2010 (together with Stephanie Barron); the retrospective of works by R. B. Kitaj in Berlin and Hamburg 2012/13; Art in Europe 1945-1968 in Brussels, Karlsruhe and Moscow 2016/17 (together with Peter Weibel); Boris Lurie and Wolf Vostell. Art after the Shoah, The Hague, Berlin, Koblenz and Budapest and published books such as Feindliche Brüder? Der Kalte Krieg und die deutsche Kunst 1945-1990, Berlin 2009 and Der Neue Mensch als Menschmaschine 1919-1939, Berlin/Bonn 2023.
He has received numerous awards and the Federal Cross of Merit in 2022.
Since 2013, he is a lecturer in art history at the Film University Potsdam-Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF.
Eckhart Gillen, Photo: Matthias Reichelt