Hubertus Giebe zum 70. Geburtstag -

Hubertus Giebe

Die Augen voller Träume ( Max Jacob) - an exhibition to celebrate Hubertus Giebe’s 70th birthday

Almost thirty five years ago Julia and I met Hubertus Giebe for the first time in Dresden, the beginning of a beautiful collaboration. Katja knows him even longer, she has been working at the Center of Art Exhibitions of the GDR and is curating his exhibition at the Biennal in Venice 1990. Dresden is famous for it's part in the formation of Modern German art. Hubertus Giebe as a young artist overcomes every possible difficulty to get information and advise about different historical aspects concerning the beginning of Modern Art. Living in the GDR and under restrictions of informations he usually finds a way to get what he needs in antiquarian editions of art historians of the 1920ies that he finds as far away as for example Tchechoslovakia. Especially Carl Einstein is formative for his painterly decisions. Dresden's museums have a fine collection of modern masters that he studies. Giebe is from a socialist family background, a party which was severely persecuted in Nazi times and is looked upon with a critical eye in the GDR. Another intellectual problem is the fact that the GDR declares itself as victor over National Socialism while Giebe feels deeply responsible of the ferocities of the regime and speechless how to express its consequences upon his own existence. In the late 70ies he gets to know Günther Grass and since 79 he starts illustrating the "Blechtrommel", paints, draws and etches to the theme. These images are never going to leave his imagination.The GDR is a regime of control, from early on Giebe is under observation, living under the control of the GDR artist's association that issues a preliminary and limited work permit to him. In such a situation he could not have finished his studies, had not Berhard Heisig in Leipzig enabled him to absolve an external diploma.

When the wall comes down, Giebe is still a young artist and his work is immedeately in the focus of the contemporary art world. Especially his contemporary formal definition of German Neue Sachlichkeit is of interest. In an exhibition at the Berlin Neue Nationalgalerie who from now on is going to combine both contemporary art collections of East and West, Dieter Honisch’s 1990 presentation of contemporary art is not only stressing the importance of Neue Sachlichkeit but as well presents the achievements of Dresden born artists who fled to West Germany and those that stood at home next to each other. Honisch is known for his talent to hang paintings in a most beautiful way. The exhibition is breathtaking and it is a visual feast to see so many different ways of painterly invention next to each other. Giebe can be seen next to Baselitz, in another exhibition next to Francis Bacon. We show Giebe’s works in 1990 in both our Berlin and London galleries. For a short moment there is the hope of Germany as a multi facetted cultural landscape with many more inventions as a consequence. 

Since the beginning of his masterly period Hubertus Giebe's is extremely busy. He travels a lot, reads even more and thus creates an inner turmoil that can only be released by painting, drawing, etching, sculpting. When he relaxes he paints the Hercules sculptures of the former Schlossgarten, as if to stress the Herculean efforts that are still to be  carried out. At the center of his favorite themes that are not going to leave his mind isathe city of Dresden, the royal park, Saxonian landscape, the drama of the communiste regime that made people perform as if they were living in an ugly doll theatre. Again and again he portraits friends in a most emphatic way that I admire.