Artist Stötzer: “Be there and don’t stay silent”

Videos and large woolen figures

About 150 of her works are now on view in the exhibition “Gabriele Stötzer: Be There and Don’t Stay Silent” at the Gropius Bau. The works include videos, photographs, fashion objects, and, for example, oversized female figures made of wool, which are also intended to evoke the women of Ukraine. Stötzer does not want to be reduced to the label of “GDR artist.”

She grew up in the GDR, took photographs and wove, is a feminist, and has been in prison; she talks about all of this, and it’s all part of her life. But if you reduce her to just a role like “GDR photographer” or “feminist,” that’s not accurate. She also finds that boring—it prevents you from growing.

Despite the repression, she didn’t leave the GDR back then. “I was always persecuted in that country, and yet, of course, it’s my home,” said Stötzer, who lives in Erfurt. Back then, she also thought to herself: “Let them go—why should I go?”