Bernhard Schipper

Neue Sorbische Kunst, Leipzig, Visual Research & Speculative Archeology in Sorbian Folk Art

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Café Venedig

Opening reception June 20th 2025, 07 PM

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'Decarbonization Endgame - #2 Zombie Apocalypse 2024’ Digital Collage, 125 x 125 mm, 2024 Fine Art Pigment Print under Acrylic Glass

'Decarbonization Endgame - #1 Darth Coal’ Digital Collage, 125 x 125 mm, 2024 Fine Art Pigment Print under Acrylic Glass

'Decarbonization Endgame - #3 Count Saxo’ Digital Collage, 125 x 125 mm, 2024 Fine Art Pigment Print under Acrylic Glass

The final battle of decarbonization is being fought in Saxony. In the course of efforts to achieve self-sufficiency since the 1920s, the Sorbian settlement area was massively changed and indigenous culture and language were eradicated by the excavation of villages. In the GDR, this process was intensified because the massive expansion of power plants meant that thousands of people were settled to operate these plants. Although it had been clear since the early 1980s (through the environmental movements) that there must also be a transformation from fossil fuels to sustainable energy production in the former GDR, the need for this after reunification was deliberately concealed and slowed down by politicians. Germany has been a pioneer in green technologies since the 1980s. Conservative politics and large industrial interests have prevented a social, ecological and economic transformation under the guise of job security and are still doing so.

The election results of 2024 compared to 2019 prove the success of reactionary strategies of sacrificing climate and the environment for profit. Despite the progressive energy policy of the current federal government in the global crisis and the availability of sustainable energy production, energy prices are rising while fossil energy companies are making surpluses. Disinformation campaigns financed by the advocates of the fossil world and a populist Saxon state policy are bearing fruit - even with the risk that fascist parties will take power in Germany - just to be able to operate a fossil business model for as long as possible. These campaigns are now so successful that even young people who will experience the destruction of the planet are also voting for right-wing politics. Those responsible for this catastrophic development in politics and the economy can be named and are not hiding.

Our global competitors such as China and the USA are now benefiting from the green technologies developed in Germany. The massive shift to the right and the fascistization in East Germany and the associated hatred of green, but left-wing politics in particular are the politically desired result. Saxony in particular is thus becoming the epicenter of this culture war of old white men who are burning the world. The Prime Minister of Saxony is doing everything he can to discredit the Green partners in the coalition and the traffic light coalition and is providing populist arguments for the right-wing spectrum in a transparent manner in order to stop the long overdue transformation of the entire region. This is particularly effective in the Lusatian lignite mining area, as there is a will for a sustainable transformation in the Central German lignite mining area through the chemical industry based there, which has recognized the advantages of a less fossil-based world from a purely economic perspective.

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'Monumente sollen stehen oder nichts - Ernst-Thälmann-Schacht’ Digital Collage, 375 x 375 mm, 2024 Fine Art Pigment Print under Acrylic Glass, Black Aluminium Art Box

With a few exceptions, the history of the places in the GDR that honor the communist workers' leader Ernst Thälmann is a history of cultural appropriation. The Ernst-Thälmann-Schacht (Vitzthumschacht) in Hübitz in the Mansfelder Land is in the immediate vicinity of the Otto-Brosowski-Schacht (Paulschacht). The mine was named after the communist Otto Brosowski from Gerbstedt, whose wife hid the Krivoy Rog flag from the Nazis. Thälmann himself also visited the miners in the Mansfeld region during the global economic crisis.

The Mansfelder Land with its copper mining since around 1200 and the mining company named after it (1852 – 1995) plays an important role in the history of Germany and especially the GDR for economic independence. The Mansfeld Combine, which was responsible for copper mining and was very large given its importance, was actually a strong driver of innovation in the GDR with consumer goods production, development for the Soviet space program and even a powerful computer in competition with the state-owned Robotron Combine. In 1979, the Mansfeld Combine began alignment work for the discovered copper slate deposits near Spremberg in the Sorbian settlement area.

Mansfeld's copper mining had such an impact that even the most important writer in the GDR, Franz Fühmann, decided to work in the mining industry in 1974 so that he could write his magnum opus and failed. His novel fragment “In the Mountain” is the document of this failure. Franz Fühmann often stayed in Upper Lusatia and in particular with fellow writers based in Wuischke on the north side of the Mountain Czorneboh (Slavic for Black God).

These loosely connected strands form the framework for the series “50 Years of Neue Sorbische Kunst,” also because they make it possible to include the work series “Black God” and “Monuments Should Stay or Nothing.”

Franz Fühmann is the connecting element in the narrative of the artist collective 'Neue Sorbische Kunst', which has been active since 1974. What we know so far is that the collective met in 1973 at the 'X. Weltfestspiele der Jugend und Studenten' and came together on New Year's Eve 1973/74 in a previously unknown location at the foot of the Mountain Czorneboh in the first hours of January 1st 1974 founding the 'Neue Sorbische Kunst'.

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'Decolonize - Die Ravensteiner Gurke' Digital Collage, 375 x 375 mm, 2024 Fine Art Pigment Print under Acrylic Glass, Black Aluminium Art Box

Die Ravensteiner Gurke

Hutzenstuben, Trutzburgen, oder Oh-Oh-Oh (doch kein) Osterreiter

Die hölzernen - manieristisch - druckgeschwärzten - expressiv - gotischen Schnitte des tausendjährigen Bautzens von Rudolf Warnecke erfreuen sich quer durch alle bildungsverbrämten Gruppen jeglicher politischer Couleur immer noch großer Beliebtheit und sind in vielen Haushalten, die ich in der Oberlausitz kenne, noch im Original zu finden. Die Buchhandlungen sind voll dieser Trutzburgen-Heimelei, welche den wohligen Schauer dunkler Zeiten der zweimal abgefeierten (1933 und 2002) tausendjährigen Geschichte als Souvenir mit den TouristInnen den Weg nach Hause finden - nachdem die Kurzweilenden der indizierten T-Shirt Freakshow auf dem Kornmarkt überdrüssig geworden sind.

Ich bin mit diesen altertümlichen Bildern meiner Geburtsstadt aufgewachsen und empfand immer ein gewisses Unbehagen beim Anblick dieser schon zu der Zeit ihrer Entstehung aus der Zeit gefallenen Darstellungen dieser Stadt. Gewiss sind einige dieser Holzschnitte ikonisch in der Darstellung der Stadt und ich möchte dem Schöpfer nicht das Handwerk als Holzschneider absprechen. Aber es fehlt mir an kritischer Einordnung und Reflektion aller AkteurInnen in der Oberlausitzer Kulturlandschaft zu einem Künstler und seinem Werk, der noch 1942 in der ‚Großen Deutschen Kunstausstellung‘ mit der Arbeit ‚Stillende Mutter‘ vertreten war. Dann 1943 ein Titelbild für die Zeitschrift ‚Deutsche Leibeszucht‘. Anzumerken ist, dass der Künstler wegen seiner Weigerung, in die NSDAP einzutreten, gegen Ende des Krieges seine Anstellung als Ausstellungsleiter am Stadtmuseum Bautzen verlor und zum Heeresdienst eingezogen wurde. Soweit so normal: Ein Karriereknick reichte bei vielen nach dem Krieg als Beleg für den Widerstand gegen das Naziregime.

Der zugegeben härteste Triggerpunkt für mich war, als Anfang diesen Jahres in Görlitz eine kleine Ausstellung gezeigt wurde, die den Künstler in eine Reihe mit Alwin Brandes, Hanka Krawcec, Johannes Wüsten, Paul Sinkwitz und Rosa Luxemburg stellte. Das expressiv erstarrte, alle Stadtbrände überdauernde Hexenhaus, als das Symbolbild eines tausendjährigen Bautzen neben einer Abbildung aus dem Herbarium von Rosa Luxemburg schmerzt dann doch sehr. Der Diskurs darüber blieb aus oder drang nicht durch ins oberste Stübchen meines gläsernen Elfenbeinturms im fernen Leipzig.

Vor einigen Wochen fand ich eine Ansichtskarte, welche für das ‚Fest der Lausitz‘ 1935 gestaltet wurde und 1941 immer noch im Umlauf war - wie die Stempel auf mehreren erhaltenen Exemplaren belegen. Der schwarze ‚Ritter‘ auf seinem schwarzen Hengst vor dem brennenden Bautzen. Ist es eine Szene aus dem Dreißigjährigen Krieg, als die kurfürstlichen Sachsen (das Wappen auf dem Schild lässt es vermuten) die Stadt belagerten? In der Folge dieser kriegerischen Auseinandersetzungen wurde das böhmische Bautzen samt dem Markgraftum Oberlausitz 1635 den Sachsen zugeschlagen. Die Perspektive, dreihundert Jahre später, ist eine großdeutsche und Rudolf Warnecke weiß den gewünschten Ton des Regimes zu treffen, welches die geplante Kolonisierung der ‚Ostgebiete‘ mit Ereignissen wie dem ‘Fest der Lausitz’ historisch begründen will. Ab 1937 wurde sorbisches Leben systematisch unterdrückt.

In einer Region, die 79 Jahre nach Kriegsende regelmäßig in der Presse wegen rechter Verhaltensauffälligkeiten gewürdigt wird und sich darüber jedes Mal ungerecht behandelt fühlt, ist der Künstler immer noch im kulturellen Mainstream verankert. Ich empfinde diese Trutzburgen-Kreuzritter-Ästhetik als zutiefst Slawen-feindlich und nicht im geringsten die Ursprünge dieser zweisprachigen Region und Heimat einer autochthonen Bevölkerungsgruppe widerspiegelnd. Die - hoffentlich nicht - kommende blau-schwarze Regierung frohlockt ob dieser braunäugigen Sehschwäche. Regelmäßig erscheinen vor meinem inneren Auge rotierende Rundumleuchten, wenn dieser Tage der Künstler und sein Werk aufploppen. Das ist nicht zwingenderweise der Aufruf zum Bildersturm, sondern lediglich eine Aufmunterung, mal eine andere und ich betone, nicht-identitäre Perspektive einzunehmen.

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'Decolonize Sorbian Settlement Area' Digital Collage, 375 x 375 mm, 2024 Fine Art Pigment Print under Acrylic Glass, Black Aluminium Art Box

Lets talk about decolonization of the sorbian settlement area. My recent project of artistic research.

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'Das sorbische Volk huldigt dem Prešeren Tag' Digital Collage, 375 x 375 mm, 2024 Fine Art Pigment Print under Acrylic Glass, Black Aluminium Art Box

Description is coming soon

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'Monumente sollen stehen oder nichts - Hohnstein’ Digital Collage, 375 x 375 mm, 2024 Fine Art Pigment Print under Acrylic Glass, Black Aluminium Art Box

Based on the series 'Monumente sollen stehen oder nichts', which deals with Ernst Thälmann, his monuments in the GDR and the treatment of other socialist monuments after the political change in 1989, this picture cycle deals with places that bore the name Ernst Thälmann and have disappeared.

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'Die Huldigung des Peter H.’ Digital Collage, 375 x 375 mm, 2024 Fine Art Pigment Print under Acrylic Glass, Black Aluminium Art Box

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'Monumente sollen stehen oder nichts - Oberhof’ Digital Collage, 375 x 375 mm, 2024 Fine Art Pigment Print under Acrylic Glass, Black Aluminium Art Box

Based on the series 'Monumente sollen stehen oder nichts', which deals with Ernst Thälmann, his monuments in the GDR and the treatment of other socialist monuments after the political change in 1989, this picture cycle deals with places that bore the name Ernst Thälmann and have disappeared.

The second part of the new 'Monuments' series addresses the historical stratifications that made the originally insignificant village of Oberhof in Thuringia into a social and sporting center of German history from the imperial era through the Third Reich to the showpiece location of the GDR . I consciously chose a motif from the Ernst Thälmann House, which also contains the monument to Duke Ernst II. A deer with her fawn looks at the building from this perspective. The monument was not removed during GDR times - only the reference to Duke Ernst II was replaced by the city coat of arms of Oberhof. The silhouette of the deer appears shadowy in the wood grain of the background, which appears to be looking at the viewer and looking down at the deer in the picture.

The green signet with the Ernst Thälmann lettering, which was used in the first picture in the series, was originally designed for the Ernst Thälmann House restaurant in Oberhof. It is one of the original references for this dysfunctional place of remembrance, in which historical events from several eras overlap without being processed. The whole setup in this folksy kitschiness in the absence of any modernity illustrates the petty bourgeois nature of GDR socialism.

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‘50th Anniversary of NSK - January 1st, 1974’ Digital Collage, 375 x 375 mm, 2023 Fine Art Pigment Print under Acrylic Glass, Black Aluminium Art Box

Nothing is further from my mind than to promote the no longer existing East German state by showing GDR symbolism while drunk with nostalgia. For some time now, however, badges from the GDR era have been appearing increasingly, which suggest that New Sorbian Art existed long before the political change in 1989. The badges mentioned show a deer or the head with antlers and oak leaves with the GDR coat of arms in the lower part and are made of cast metal or plastic. The deer is one of the visual anchors in the NSK universe.

An embossed lignite briquette recently appeared in an online auction house, which shows the identical deer motif as on the badge as well as the year '1974' and the words 'Prosit Neujahr (Happy New Year)' in two lines. Should this commemorative briquette be proof of the founding date of the New Sorbian Art? Then the East German NSK would have been founded on January 1st, 1974. It has not yet been possible to reconstruct where exactly this founding meeting took place in Lusatia on the night of December 31st to January 1st, 1974.

Time doesn't just move forward linearly. Traveling back in time on a timeline changes reality there as well as here in the now. It is impossible to imagine what would happen to the 'NSK State In Time' if, at sufficient speed, the space-time curvature made travel in parallel universes of the 'NSK State In Time' possible.

But wait a minute - the tree for the national identity of the Sorbs is the linden tree. But don't the oak leaves show that we are on the wrong track.

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‘Aktivist’ Digital Collage, 375 x 375 mm, 2023 Fine Art Pigment Print under Acrylic Glass, Black Aluminium Art Box

‘Activist’ is probably the most totalitarian-seeming image in the series so far. The composition consists only of visual set pieces of the socialist hero glorification in the mining industry and the German miners' song 'Vor dem Anfahren' from the Mansfelder Land from 1797. I tried to reduce the aggressive expression - not particularly successfully. Until I realized that the elements such as: danger of being buried, community, omnipresent death, uniforms, and (the built-up) ideal of serving the people are inherent in the theme and I have to accept this in order to complete the picture.

Mining is war against Earth - our home planet.

I have to admit that I have had little contact with the mining culture so far. But since the beginning of the 1990s at the latest, it has been clear that mining in Germany is a phased-out model - an industry with no future due to dwindling resources, high environmental pollution and the health consequences for employees. But politicians in eastern Germany in particular cling to the myth that fossil resources never run out - also because they have failed to develop sustainable alternatives and perspectives. Mining has caused irreparable damage to the landscape and has irrevocably destroyed autochthonous culture, especially in the opencast mining areas of East Germany. Mining companies criminally mislead the public when it comes to water extraction from ecosystems.

Ultimately, the glorification of fossil fuel industries can no longer be justified. This is not to deny the achievements, hardships and sacrifices made by miners and their families for centuries. The picture is dedicated to them.

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‘Black God - Eternal Denim’ Digital Collage, 375 x 375 mm, 2023 Fine Art Pigment Print under Acrylic Glass, Black Aluminium Art Box

Everything is folk art. For my current series I use almost exclusively graphic pieces from the Internet - more precisely screenshots from Ebay. It's a game of low pixel density, blurring, poor lighting and crooked angles.

Similar to folk art, where the content, the formal and the passing on of tradition are in the foreground and the perfect craftsmanship, achieved with excellent tools, seems less important - in my work the perfect templates are not necessary for the sake of the statement.

The age-related discolored book cover, which becomes denim due to insufficient image resolution, blurring and exaggerated color curves and the trick of adding copper coins to the indigo, takes on something eternal through its technical reproducibility. Or is it just a washed-out image of the depths of space?

Karl Marx's visionary analysis of the exploitation of the means of production and their omnipresence, which is committed to constant growth, rejects eternal capitalism, since the process logically ends in self-destruction.

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'Monumente sollen stehen oder nichts - Halle/Saale’ Digital Collage, 375 x 375 mm, 2023 Fine Art Pigment Print under Acrylic Glass, Black Aluminium Art Box

Based on the series 'Monuments should stay or nothing', which deals with Ernst Thälmann, his monuments in the GDR and the treatment of other socialist monuments after the political change in 1989, this picture cycle deals with places that bore the name Ernst Thälmann and have disappeared.

The beginning of this new series is Ernst-Thälmann-Platz in Halle/Saale, which is probably the most radical urban redevelopment in the GDR. The square, which is now called Riebeck-Platz again, has undergone a complete renovation and dismantling over the last twenty years. Just as the GDR ensemble erased all traces of pre-war development, so that no element of the original development exists today.

In the graphic implementation I use the socialist folklore typical of the GDR, from the oak veneer to the green patch with anachronistic serif lettering.

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'Landnahme’ Mixed Media / Digital Collage, 375 x 375 mm, 1993/2023 Fine Art Pigment Print under Acrylic Glass, Black Aluminium Art Box

In the exhibition ‘XXX years of Zonic’ a small photograph of an early picture of Neue Sorbische Kunst from 1993 was on display. It is a mixed media image which shows in the center of the image an early computer graphic of a memorial plaque for the fallen high school graduates in World War I at the Bautzen high school. The crossed memorial plaque is flanked by heads from the sculpture 'Sitting Old Couple' by the Bautzen sculptor Horst Weiße. The original picture was framed in a wooden picture frame by the Upper Lusatian sculptor Jürgen Spottke.

The original background was an original neo-expressive painting of mine from 1989, which I painted on an old foam rubber-coated stage structure of the German-Sorbian Folk Theater. Later I treated the painting surface with plaster, salt and golden metal pigment, so that a living picture was created that reacted to the respective environmental conditions by sweating or oxidizing.

The picture was in my father's collection and was lost after his death. It was part of a series of mixed media images, all of which no longer exist. Now, with the help of artificial intelligence, I tried to increase the resolution of the image to bring out details. Ultimately, this attempt only shows the limitations of current artificial intelligence, which is not able to deal with abstract or unknown image content.

As part of the timeline images, the mixed media series has a certain relevance, so I show the current status of the reconstruction and, if necessary, publish a new version of the image from time to time.

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'Leitmotiv’ Digital Collage, 375 x 375 mm, 2023 Fine Art Pigment Print under Acrylic Glass, Black Aluminium Art Box

Ernst Thälmann belongs to the DNA of early New Sorbian art. The performance “Monuments should stand or nothing” on April 16, 1991 at the Ernst Thälmann Monument in Bautzen was the first (public) collaboration between the Riefenstahl artist group. Based on the performance, two publications and three short films were created, as well as a number of pictorial works that are not represented in the publications.

The special thing about the Bautzen Thälmann Monument is that its creator, Wieland Förster, was imprisoned in Bautzen as a teenager, just like Thälmann. This historical charge also sets it apart from the GDR workers' and farmers' kitsch of other Thälmann monuments.

In the spirit of the folk artistic examination of the GDR role model of a hero, Ernst Thälmann offers an almost inexhaustible reservoir of image material that literally calls out to be recycled and sampled. Here is another variant of the German workers' leader, who was shamefully played along in a historical sense and who has a permanent place in the ancestral gallery of tragic heroes at NSK.

The original Thälmann monument by Wieland Förster with the preserved traces of the Riefenstahl performance from 1991 has now found a place in the Bautzen Memorial Museum, which is accompanied by video excerpts from the performance. The three-part video was most recently shown at the ‘XXX years of Zonic’ exhibition in Leipzig.

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'Roman U.’ Digital Collage, 375 x 375 mm, 2023 Fine Art Pigment Print under Acrylic Glass, Black Aluminium Art Box

Back in 1988 I got my hands on the vinyl album ‘Let it Be’ by the Yugoslavian band Laibach. The album contains cover versions of the Beatles album of the same name. What impressed me most was the cover artwork, which interpreted the four portraits of the musicians. It was designed by the Slovenian artist group Irwin, which, together with Laibach, is part of the Neue Slowenische Kunst concept. Although it was only a very small glimpse through the Iron Curtain for me at the time, this LP had a huge influence on my artistic work. I spent hours studying the artwork.

On the occasion of the 1st NSK Folk Art Biennale 2014 in Leipzig, I had the opportunity to get to know the Irwin artist group personally. In my experience, Roman Uranjek was the most open and funniest of the group. After the exhibition we were in contact via Facebook. He was very active on Facebook and we followed our work.

In June 2022 he was the first to like pictures of my Hermann Noordung sneakers. A few weeks later I received the news of his sudden death, which shocked me greatly. For these reasons, this is also my most personal work in this series. I struggled for a long time with myself about giving an artistic commentary.

The catalog for the current Irwin exhibition “What is Art, Irwin?” at HMKV comes with a trigger warning. Roman Uranjek, my personal tragic hero. The picture is dedicated to him.