"Ostpunk," comes with the tongue-in-cheek subtitle "too much future," a reference to oft-spoken optimistic communist party sayings that many young people in the punk movement found little value in. It’s also a not-so-subtle nod to the "No Future" slogan of British punk rockers of the time.

Curators of the show include Michael Boehlke and Bernd Micheal Lade, who together formed a punk band "Planlos" (Without a Plan) nearly 25 years ago. Together they have put together the first ever historic exhibition that has its heart in the culture of protest.

Veritably cut off from the punk counterculture of the West, East German punk rockers made their own buttons and sewed their own leather jackets, forming a subculture that, while vaguely resembling their counterparts in the capitalistic west, stood against something even more confining – the communist system.

As the exhibition lays it out, East German punk rockers evoked various emotions on the side of the East German Secret Police: frustration, anger, and later, resignation.

Punk music not being a closed world, the exhibition also profits from the work of several important contemporary German artists who were inspired by the movement, such as Cornelia Schleime, Ralf Kerbach, Mita Schamal and Christiane Eisler.
The exhibition runs through September 25.
Republished with permission from "The Week in Germany"