Gabriele Stötzer: Be There and Be Not Silent

Gabriele Stötzer (*1953) has been exploring themes of justice, self-determination and gender for over five decades. Her own body often plays a central role in her work – not as an object but as a venue of resistance and feminist self-assertion. In what will be the artist’s largest institutional exhibition yet, the Berlin Gropius Bau examines a life of creative production that is inseparable from Stötzer’s political involvement in and resistance against the repressive structures of the former GDR. After participating in a protest in 1976, she was deregistered from university and later sentenced to a one-year jail term at Hoheneck women’s prison for defaming the state. Following her release, Gabriele Stötzer became a central figure of Erfurt’s literary-artistic underground movement. There, she assumed management of the private and soon-after banned exhibition venue “Galerie im Flur” and was a co-founder of the “Erfurt Women’s Artist Group” (also: Exterra XX), the only group of its kind in the GDR. In 1989 she participated in the “Women for Change” initiative, which was the first to occupy a secret police (“Stasi”) precinct.

Stötzer’s experience of protest, surveillance and self-organisation has shaped a body of work that experimentally explores liberation, courage and the social role of women in various media. The focus on artistic resistance in the face of political repression also evokes obvious references to the present day. In the second half of 2026, the Gropius Bau will present more than 150 works from Stötzer’s entire artistic career, including paintings, drawings, photography, Super-8 films, ceramics, textile art, performances and installations. Two new productions are planned, partly comprising recycled material from her earlier works and which encourage active audience participation. The project includes a parallel collaboration with the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź.

Curated by Julia Grosse, strategic and conceptual advising and development, Gropius Bau, with Christopher Wierling, assistant curator, Gropius Bau

Concept: Julia Grosse and Franziska Schmidt, head of the Kommunale Galerien Tempelhof-Schöneberg

Participants: Exterra XX, Ensemble für Intuitive Musik Weimar
 

Dates
 

19 June 2026 – 6 December 2026: Exhibition Gropius Bau, | Berlin