MARGRET HOPPE

Margret Hoppe explores remnants of art pieces, mostly paintings, of the former GDR where she photographs empty spaces in rooms, on walls or the facades of houses which were used for political and social art during the East German era. Over the past two decades, the art pieces have either been painted over or taken down. Hoppe’s photographs point to the ’scene of a crime,’ as she likes to refer to her spaces, where visual memory has been lost. Through the photographs she acknowledges their existence by using titles which mention author, title and year of the lost paintings, thus stirring the viewer’s imagination about what those paintings might have looked like. It is Hoppe’s intention that her photographs serve as a surrogate for those lost visual traces of a state that once was.

During her research, Hoppe visited the archives where some of the the works are now being stored with an uncertain future. She explains that her photographs refer to the handling of art during societal changes as well as the decay of cultural and artistic inheritance of a vanished state.

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Werner Tübke
Intelligenz und Arbeiterklasse (Intelligence and the Working class), 1973
Mischtechnik auf Holz (Mixed technique on wood)
12 Tafeln (12 panels), 270 x 1380 cm
Karl-Marx-Universität Leipzig
Universität Leipzig, 2006
From the series Verschwundene Bilder (Vanished Pictures)
© Margret Hoppe

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Thomas Ziegler
Sowjetische Soldaten (Soviet Soldiers) 1987, 1987
Öl auf Leinwand (Oil on canvas), 158 x 127 cm
Deutsch Sowjetische Freundschaft (German-Soviet Friendship),
Bezirksleitung Schwerin (District Council Schwerin)
Kunstarchiv Beeskow, 2004
From the series Verschwundene Bilder (Vanished Pictures)
© Margret Hoppe

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Werner Tübke
Fünf Kontinente (Five Continents), 1959
Öl auf Holz (Oil on wood), 5 Diptycha (5 diptychs each), 245 x 245 cm
Interhotel Astoria Leipzig
Interhotel Astoria Leipzig, 2006
From the series Verschwundene Bilder (Vanished Pictures)
© Margret Hoppe

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Gerhard Richter
Lebensfreude (Joy of Life), 1956
Wandbild (Fresco), 500 x 1500 cm
Deutsches Hygienemuseum Dresden (German Hygiene Museum Dresden)
Deutsches Hygienemuseum Dresden, 2005
From the series Verschwundene Bilder (Vanished Pictures)
© Margret Hoppe

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Werner Petzold
Friedliche Nutzung der Atomenergie (The Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy), 1974
Industrieemaille auf Stahlblech (Enamel on steel sheet metal), 1600 x 1200 cm
Wismutgelände Paitzdorf, Thüringen
Wismutgelände Paitzdorf, Thüringen, 2005

From the series Verschwundene Bilder (Vanished Pictures)
© Margret Hoppe

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Hartwig Ebersbach
Antiimperialistische Solidarität (Anti-Imperialist Solidarity),1977
Öl auf Sperrholz, Rauminstallation aus 15 Teilen (Oil on ply wood, Room-installation of 15 pieces), 241 x 800 cm
Karl-Marx-Universität Leipzig
Altenhain bei Leipzig, 2003
From the series Verschwundene Bilder (Vanished Pictures)
© Margret Hoppe

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Bernhard Heisig
Ohne Titel (Untitled), 1969
Scraffito, 400 x 1200 cm
Gästehaus des Ministerrates der DDR (Guest house of the GDR’s Cabinet Council)
Gästehaus am Park, 2006

From the series Verschwundene Bilder (Vanished Pictures)
© Margret Hoppe

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Margret Hoppe was born in 1981 and studied philosophy, art history as well as photography. She received her BFA in Photography at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig, Germany. In 2005 she received a stipend to study for one year at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris with Jean-Marc Bustamante and Christian Boltanski. Her work has been chosen for the 2007-8 Gute Aussichten-Junge Deutsche Fotografie Good Perpsectives-Young German Photography.

She now lives and works in Leipzig.