Traveling around the World Theater. Exhibition of Dieter M. Weidenbach. 18+

The Erart Museum presents a retrospective exhibition of the German artist Dieter M. Weidenbach.

• Retrospective of 50-year Relations with Russian-Soviet Art
• Biography of the author and the history of post-war Europe in the paintings
• Eternal non-conformism, search and provocation

Dieter Weidenbach studied the history and history of art in Leipzig for four semesters, and from 1964 to 1971 he studied painting and graphics at the Higher School of Graphics and Book Decoration. In 1968, he was delegated through the inter-university educational exchange to the Moscow Polygraphic Institute. With an exhibition project at the Erarta Museum, the artist celebrates a kind of 50th anniversary of his first meeting with Russia.

He received his first Russian aesthetic revelation as a 14-year-old schoolboy during a visit to an exhibition of Soviet painting. The art doctrine of "socialist realism" proclaimed by Stalin set the scale for official art throughout Eastern Europe, which was under the influence of the Soviets. Weidenbach’s first painting was a copy of the portrait of a Kyrgyz girl Semyon Chuykov. This work is an epigraph of the exhibition and evidence of the artist’s close relationship with both the visual arts and the literature and music of the Soviet Union and Russia.

The exhibition includes works created over 50 years of a creative biography, and is conditionally divided into five parts. Each of these parts reflects a special personal and historical situation, which significantly influenced the creative path of the author. These are peculiar caesuras - poetic pauses of creative formation.

Part 1. The early work of the school and student periods, from 1960 to 1975. The artist is in search of form and means of expression.

Part 2. The picture "On the Way" the young artist finds his word, critically addressing social development. He analyzes the state of reality and strives for change. During this period, Weidenbach comes to the attention of state bodies. Then, from 1976 to 1980, the artist makes study visits abroad to capitalist countries.

Part 3. The artist’s wife is illegally transported to West Berlin. This exacerbates the life circumstances of the artist, who remained in the German Democratic Republic with his daughter. His themes are becoming more radical. Gloomy visions appear in the works. Weidenbach turns to the themes and painting techniques of the Middle Ages. The works “Island of the Dead by Arnold Beklin” and “Wrapped in Goethe” by the artist make a symbolic break with the GDR.

In 1985, he leaves the country, loses his citizenship and goes with his daughter to West Berlin, and then on a long journey through countries in which he was always attracted by inner anguish. Italy, France, Spain… Until 1990.

Part 4. After the fall of the Eastern Bloc, the general structure of Europe changes, along which the triumphant march of capitalism of the turbo-society sweeps. The artist reacts to fractures, changes, distortions and wars with a large pictorial cycle - Dance of Death, War in the Gulf, and Zero Level. The artist lives and works in his native Weimar. His position remains unconformable to society. So, on the occasion of his 70th birthday, he opens the provocative exhibition “Clash” in the Weimar Kunsthall. Count Harry Kessler, billing the consumer society and the barbaric destruction of nature.

Part 5. The exhibition in St. Petersburg, the author emphasizes his connection with Russia. This is one of the most significant pauses - Caesur - the creative formation of the artist. In this meeting, Weidenbach seeks strength to displace everything created in a new and last phase. The circle of his creative life is closed.