CLOSED May 12, 2013

Tiny heads, big hands applauding, swelling bodies and strong colours – in a daring and ironic way Hans Ticha challenges the many faces of power and consumerism.

Behind the Wall

Art in GDR had a specific function. The controlling regime used culture and art as instruments to further the socialist project. Artists were to contribute to the development of a “workers’ and farmers’ state” and a “new Socialist man” – the leading culture-political ideal being “Socialist realism”. Artists who failed to meet the demands and expectations of those in power were subjected to censorship, deprived of their right of speech and – to the last degree – imprisoned or driven out of the GDR.

Hans Ticha, painter and lithographic artist, is one of the central GDR artists that were critical towards the ruling regime. He had to walk on a tightrope to avoid personal infringement when attacking the East German dictatorship in his ironic and ambiguous works – the regime kept a sharp watch on him. Hans Ticha actually had to hide many of his political paintings from the 1980’ies – paintings that can be seen in the exhibition at the Workers’ Museum – behind more innocent works of art in his studio in East Berlin. Otherwise he would have been accused of criminal state defamation.

The starting point of Hans Ticha’s works is the citizens’ actual living conditions during the GDR regime, but the motifs are universal: the rhetoric of the rulers, the alienation of the individual and the conformism of society.

Hans Ticha (born 1940), originally certified teacher in pedagogics and artistic taste, graduated as a painter from Hochschule für Bildende und Angewandte Kunst in Berlin (1965-70) and then worked as book illustrator, lithographic artist and painter. He set up his studio in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg and joined the art circle at Kollwitzplatz. During the 1970’ies Hans Ticha was widely acknowledged and received several prizes for his works within applied graphic art and book illustrations and he was counted among leading young illustrators like Ruth Knorr, Klaus Ensikat and Horst Hussel. Yet he was unable to exhibit his political paintings.

Goodbye to GDR

After the fall of the Wall 1989 and the reunification Hans Ticha moved to Maintal, Frankfurt am Main where he realized that his critical view on the mechanisms and power balances of society was still greatly needed. In his more recent works he focuses on motifs like the unstoppable consumerism, the dominance of the financial sector and the human body as an object. And now he can finally finish and exhibit his political works from the GDR.

Over the years Hans Ticha has received a vast number of prizes and distinctions and has exhibited in the GDR, in Germany as well as internationally. The exhibition at the Workers’ Museum covers works from 1969 to 2011 and is his first museum exhibition in Denmark.

Central Motives

Hans Ticha’s critical art from the GDR mainly centres on the self-staging of those in power and the extensive use of rituals and symbols at for instance military parades and political mass meetings.

In Hans Ticha’s artistic idiom man is the central figure. The political followers and oppressed “socialist model citizens” with grotesquely enlarged hands and tiny heads with no facial expressions are merely props in the cheering ceremonies staged by the power elite. People are manipulated and depicted as a homogeneous mass exploited by the regime as illustrated in his many paintings of applauding figures. Another favourite motive is GDR’s pursuit of athletes as symbols of the superiority and capacity of the regime. Swelling, hormone bursting and simplified bodies enthusiastically engaged in football, hockey and hurdle race.

In the reunited Germany Hans Ticha focuses on a civilization where man is subjected to the capitalist society’s craving for consumption. With a sense of humour, Hans Ticha now pinpoints the manipulations of the free market and his recent paintings present the idea that whatever we wish for and dream of can be bought – be it experiences, sex or material goods.

The Idiom

Hans Ticha’s artistic idiom is varied – he moves freely between the realistically figurative and the abstract, and strong clear colours are characteristic. The many swelling and deformed human bodies in his artistic universe are graphically pinpointed and often depicted in dynamic movement. The artistic effects are far from the rooted prejudice of a DDR in shades of orange and brown, and obviously many art critics regard Hans Ticha as the only pop artist from the DDR period.

Hans Ticha deliberately uses the aesthetics of the press photography for instance by applying coarse rasters in his paintings and he is inspired by popular culture and the rituals of everyday life. However, he also carries a classical art ballast and his artistic idiom is based on the “isms” of the interwar period – from Dadaism and constructivism to surrealism. Hans Ticha himself mentions the Russian constructivist artists, the Bauhaus painters and the French painter Fernand Léger as his main models and inspiration.

The exhibition can be seen from February 9 to May 12, 2013.

Temporary exhibition: September 1 – November 25, 2012

On exhibit will be 70 paintings, borrowed from various museums, e.g. the National Gallery of Denmark, KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art Aalborg, as well as from private owners. The selection will be made based on themes and will create a dialogue between Poul Anker Bech (1942-2009) and Niels Lergaard (1893-1982). Poul Anker Bech himself made a point of being inspired by Lergaard – an inspiration that goes much further than suggested by their brief meeting in 1966 as student and professor at The Jutland Art Academy. Their intellectual fellowship is particularly explicit in the paintings of the sea view with the high horizon – often lined by houses, people and landscapes. But it is seen also in the endeavours to find an artistic idiom for the existence of modern man and man's basic conditions.

The exhibition is shown at the Vendsyssel Museum of Art before reaching the Workers' Museum and then the Bornholm Museum of Art. The original concept was developed in 2008 in cooperation with Poul Anker Bech and the exhibition was planned to open on the occasion of his 70 years birthday in April 2012. The painter unfortunately passed away before the exhibition was implemented. Vendsyssel Museum of Art proceeded with the concept and filled his wish that the exhibition should be shown around the country.

Bornholm being the part of Denmark that particularly inspired Niels Lergaard, it was only natural to organise the exhibition in cooperation with the Bornholm Museum of Art. The art and works of Poul Anker Bech fall within the focus area of the Workers' Museum, the life and challenges of man in a modern welfare society.

Temporary Exhibition: February 11 – May 28, 2012
 
“The poster is waging war from every other street corner in the industrial city", Social Democrat Julius Bomholt wrote in 1932. The war metaphor reflects the massive presence of political posters in the public or private sphere during the last 100 years. From walls and lampposts posters have served as weapons in the ongoing political and social struggles.

More than 12,000 of these posters from Denmark and abroad are part of the collections of the Workers' Museum & the Labour Movement's Library and Archives (ABA). It's a wonderful mix of crazy, crooked, ugly and beautiful, funny and serious posters that would certainly not have been saved, had we not conducted an active collection from the many political parties and movements that emerged with the labor movement. The posters should not be judged on the basis of their artistic value, but for their clout and ability to touch people and to spread the word.
 
A selection from this unique collection now forms the basis of a different and sensuous poster exhibition at the Workers' Museum. Here an almost endless variety of themes are presented: Demonstrations, labour disputes and strikes - peace and disarmament - climate and environment - children, young and old - the EU and NATO – May Day and international solidarity - Christiania and Youth - Poul Schlüter, Thorvald Stauning and Chairman Mao - naked, dead, revolutionaries, women, cyclists, and much more.

The many themes demonstrate the importance of the posters in the political debate through the 20th century as a means of information, promotion and announcement of campaigns, events as well as statements of political views.
 
In the exhibition you can also meet those who fight for a spot on the wall to put the posters, you can watch movies about some of the many spectacular actions that the posters are part of and you can read stories by some of the many poster-makers who have turned the poster into that very vibrant and important means of communication that it has been through 100 years.
 
The exhibition also includes documents, photographs and objects that serve to put the posters in their original context.
 
We hope that the exhibition will contribute to reflections on how the political debate has developed, and that when leaving the museum you will see the city with new eyes. That you will note the small message on a sticker on a lamppost. Note the poster mounted on a cabinet or garbage can announcing a demonstration. Note that you are part of a world where the political struggle is alive - also as a call from the wall!
 
And a book
 
The exhibition catalogue published by the Workers' Museum & the Labour Movement's Library and Archives contains contributions by poster artists Thomas Kruse (Røde Mor) and Mikael Witte, and a very personal account by one of the activists from 'Ungdomshuset', who describes the great power that organized  'poster-mounters' have over the urban spaces. Librarian at ABA, Dorte Ellesøe Hansen tells about the establishment of the extensive collection. Curator Margit Bech Larsen describes the historical development of the political posters in an article on posters from HK (The Union of Commercial and Clerical Employees in Denmark).  And communication researcher Orla Vigsø writes about the development of the election poster during the last 100 years.
 
The exhibition A Call from the Wall - Political Posters Through 100 Years can be seen February 11 to May 28, 2012.