Christine Schlegel

The history of the GDR Super-8 scene—an underground art movement that produced films outside official channels in the 1980s—produced by Cornelia Klauss, herself a Super-8 artist. The Stasi (secret police) monitored this rebellious scene closely. Female artists Ramona Köppel-Welsch, Cornelia Schleime and Christine Schlegel, among others, talk about their art and films, their experiences as artists in the GDR, and how their work changed after the Wall came down.

GDR August 31, 1985, Klubhaus in Coswig/Dresden - "Intermedia I - Farbraum/Klangbild"- the event was the first and, as it turned out, the last exhibition by the subculture in East Germany, in which over 40 visual artists and twice as many musicians, performers and super 8 film photographers participated. About 1,200 visitors travelled from all over the GDR to witness a six hour programme on both evenings. It remains unclear to this day how many informers working for the Stasi were among them.

In an enigmatically arranged tableau vivant, the painter Christine Schlegel permits the messiahs and other saviours to meet. Their ideals are, however, doomed to failure due to timidity, greed and betrayal.

Far removed from the officially propagated GDR cultural sector, Christine Schlegel created her very own energetic cosmos on 8mm stock between 1977 and 1986. She painted over or scratched lines and shapes on footage of the dancer Fine Kwiatkowski. She projected painted footage on the dancing body during live performances, enveloping and re-shaping it.