Annemirl Bauer. Bruch ist in der Welt

Annemirl Bauer. Rupture Is in the World

September 5, 2026 – February 7, 2027

Starting September 5, 2026, DAS MINSK Kunsthaus in Potsdam will present a comprehensive retrospective dedicated to the artistic work of Annemirl Bauer (born 1939 in Jena, died 1989 in East Berlin). Annemirl Bauer was a critical and independent voice from the GDR—an artist who was long denied recognition in art history. Drawing from over three decades of her artistic career—from the late 1950s to her untimely death in 1989—the exhibition will feature approximately 150 paintings, drawings, collages, and objects from this extraordinary body of work. Organized into four thematic chapters, this retrospective examines Annemirl Bauer’s works, which explore role models and gender relations within patriarchal power structures, self-empowerment, human rights, environmental destruction, and state oppression. The titles of the exhibition sections are inspired by words from the artist’s own works and writings. Much like in diary entries, she captured both the personal and the political in her numerous works. She tirelessly documented what she saw and what preoccupied her. Annemirl Bauer’s works are testaments to her self-image as a painter and uncompromising observer who continually advocated for social justice and rebelled against the repressions of SED policy. Annemirl Bauer was denied a major institutional exhibition during her lifetime. It is to the credit of her daughter, Amrei Bauer—executor of her estate as well as founder and curator of the Annemirl Bauer House in Brandenburg—that a large portion of her work has been preserved and kept together as a cohesive collection. This exhibition makes a large number of her works accessible to a broader public, not least thanks to the extensive research and restoration work carried out by DAS MINSK.

The exhibition’s curator, Marie Gerbaulet, summarizes the poignancy and relevance of Annemirl Bauer’s work as follows:

“Viewing life through the lens of Annemirl Bauer’s visual worlds is challenging, moving, and can at times be painful. For her works are honest, complex, authentic, uncomfortable, and highly relevant to this day. Her courage to publicly question political decisions led to state repression, which is why her artistic work received little public attention for a long time. Yet through her fearlessness and her painterly power, Annemirl Bauer created a distinctive and independent body of work that enabled her to live self-determinedly and to act in an informed and resistant manner amid all the contradictions and turmoil that surrounded her. Her perception and reflection of the major upheavals and challenges of her time in everyday life and interpersonal relationships resonate with our experience of the present.”

The exhibition is curated by Marie Gerbaulet, with Luisa Bachmann serving as curatorial assistant. It is being organized in close collaboration with Amrei Bauer, the estate administrator as well as the founder and curator of the Annemirl Bauer House in Brandenburg.