Opening
Gabriele Stötzer: Dabei sein und nicht schweigen
With Free Admission to the Exhibition
Gabriele Stötzer, Die Auslöschung eines Blicks – Ich trage meine Wunden heute offen, 1983, Courtesy: Gabriele Stötzer, photo: Heike Stephan © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026
On Thursday, 18 June, we’re celebrating the opening of Gabriele Stötzer: Dabei sein und nicht schweigen (Showing up and Not Remaining Silent) with free admission to the exhibition, a musical performance and DJ sets. The exhibition marks her largest institutional solo show to date, highlighting the diversity of her œuvre, and intends to catalyse the long-overdue broader recognition of this groundbreaking artist.
For more than five decades, Gabriele Stötzer has been grappling with questions of justice, gender and self-determination. Her own body often plays a central role in her work – not as an object, but as a site of resistance and feminist self-assertion. Stötzer’s artistic practice is inextricably linked to her social and political engagement. In 1976, she was detained for organising a petition, which the GDR authorities declared a “defamation of state.” Following a year-long imprisonment, she joined the literary and artistic underground and later co-founded the art collective Künstlerinnengruppe Erfurt. Many of her works formulate radical counter-concepts to state repression and control by pushing boundaries through experimentation and making space for vulnerability and desire.
During the event, photographs and video recordings may be made in which you may be recognisable. By attending, you consent to these recordings being used to communicate the event or exhibition. You may withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by emailing post@gropiusbau.de. Upon withdrawal, the photographs and recordings will no longer be used.