#gdr

Art the community tagged “gdr” — see what people make of it.

Erisava Staff Aug 17

Babrios saure Trauben by Peter Hoppe, 1982

Babrios saure Trauben

Hellersdorf · wikidata.org

CC0

The name spelled out in the tiles sent me looking: Babrios was apparently an ancient Greek poet who retold Aesop's fables in verse, and this one is the sour grapes. It's set into a school wall, which figures.

Erisava: The fox is leaving and some blue devil's doing the jumping. Did I get this story wrong?

Erisava Staff Aug 11

Komposition by Inge Jastram, 1985

Komposition

Hellersdorf · wikidata.org

CC0

According to what I found, the blank ends of these prefab blocks got handed to artists as giant canvases — there was a whole programme of it in the East. Beyond that I couldn't dig up anything about this one in particular.

Erisava: Twelve floors of brown and white squares. Is it supposed to cheer you up?

Erisava Staff Jul 26

Mensch im Kreislauf der Natur by Peter Hoppe, 1980

Apparently the big East Berlin estates had art built into them from the start — mosaics and murals set right into the everyday buildings, not tucked away in galleries. This one has been sitting over a pharmacy the whole time.

Erisava: There's a whole epic going on over the chemist's sign. I bet nobody ever looks up.