# Peter Michel

Peter Michel (born 14 October 1938) is a German art scholar, publicist and exhibition organizer.

## Life

Born in Freyburg (Unstrut), Michel comes from a craftsman family. After attending the Immanuel-Kant-Gymnasium (Berlin) [de], after the Abitur, he studied German studies and art education at the Pädagogische Hochschule Erfurt/Mühlhausen [de] from 1956 to 1959. From 1959 to 1964 he was a teacher at the secondary school Neudorf [de]. Afterwards he worked in the district administration Annaberg and in the district administration Karl-Marx-Stadt of Free German Youth. From 1970 to 1974 followed an Aspirantur [de] at the Akademie für Gesellschaftswissenschaften beim ZK der SED [de]; there he completed his doctorate on the topic "Interrelations between professional and non-professional art". In 1974 he became a member of the Verband Bildender Künstler der DDR [de] (VBK) and member of the Central Board of the VBK. From 1974 to 1987 he was the director of the journal Bildende Kunst [de] (Organ of the Central Board of the VBK) published by Henschelverlag [de].
Because of public criticism of the curriculum for the subject art education, Michel was regulated in 1976 by the Ministerium für Volksbildung (DDR) [de]. A year later, a controversy followed with politician Hans Koch [de] about the contemporary nature of the term "Socialist Realism".
From 1979 to 1991 he was a member of the International Association of Art Critics. From 1987 to 1989 he worked as secretary of the central committee of the Verband Bildender Künstler der DDR [de] (VBK). At the end of 1989 he resigned from the VBK and from the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED/PDS). Up to the dissolution of the publishing house structure he was for a short time artistic-technical director of the Kinderbuchverlag Berlin [de]; then unemployment followed. From 1991 until 2003 he worked as a freelancer for pb-Verlag Munich, exhibition organizer and freelance journalist. Michel had working stays in 19 European and non-European countries. Since 1990 he has focused his attention on a respectful treatment of art created in the German Democratic Republic. In 1995 he handed over a collection of texts for archiving and research to the Art Research Center in the Getty Center. In 1991 Michel became a founding member of the association Gesellschaft zum Schutz von Bürgerrecht und Menschenwürde [de] (GBM) and member of the federal board of the GBM. He was speaker of the GBM's "Culture" working group and a founding member of the "Art from the GDR" circle of friends. From 2004 to 2008 and in 2012 he took over as editor-in-chief of the magazine ICARUS of the GBM, which was discontinued in the same year.

## Publications and exhibitions
### Own book publications

* Die Staffelei im Hühnerhof, Der Kinderbuchverlag Berlin (2 editions 1981,1982)
* Buchbilder. Klaus Ensikat [de] und seine Illustrationen, performed by Michel, Der Kinderbuchverlag Berlin 1989
* Ankunft in der Freiheit. Essays gegen den Werteverlust der Zeit, Verlag am Park, Berlin 2011
* Kulturnation Deutschland? Streitschrift wider die modernen Vandalen, with documentary picture section; Verlag Wiljo Heinen, Berlin and Böklund 2013, ISBN 978-3-95514-003-8
* Künstler in der Zeitenwende I. Biografische Miniaturen und ein Prolog von Armin Stolper [de], Verlag Wiljo Heinen, Berlin und Böklund 2016, ISBN 978-3-95514-911-6
* Künstler in der Zeitenwende II. Biografische Miniaturen und ein Prolog von Wiljo Heinen [de], Verlag Wiljo Heinen, Berlin und Böklund 2018, ISBN 978-3-95514-912-3
* Gewissenstrommler. Essays zur bildenden Kunst 1994–2018, Verlag Wiljo Heinen, Berlin and Böklund, 2018, ISBN 978-3-95514-036-6.
List of publications.

### Contributions in other book publications and catalogues

* Mythos und Ethos. Essay für die Monographie Heidrun Hegewald [de] – Zeichnungen, Malerei, Graphik, Texte, ed. by Angelika Haas and Bernd Kuhnert, ARTE-MISIA-PRESS Berlin 2004
* Lexikon Künstler in der DDR, ed. by Dietmar Eisold, Verlag Neues Leben Berlin 2010, Leitung der Redaktionsgruppe
* Text für den Katalog "Gudrun Brüne – Lebensspuren" des Museums am Dom Würzburg, ed. by Michael Koller and Jürgen Lenssen, o. J.
* Mit Kopf und Herz, text for the catalog Nils Burwitz [de] – It’s about time…" on the occasion of his personal exhibition at the Forum ALTE POST in Pirmasens 2017

### Articles in the German press

* Die Naiven – Verklärung und Realität, Artikelfolge in der Zeitschrift „Bildnerisches Volksschaffen“, issues 2 to 5/1974
* 20 Jahre Kultur-Vandalismus. DDR-Kunst soll als "ein hässlicher Regentropfen der Geschichte rasch verdunsten", in special issue of the Deutsche Geschichte: 20 Jahre deutsch-deutsches Dilemma – eine alternativlos ehrliche Bilanz, Einheit in Zwietracht, issue 1/2010

### Articles in foreign newspapers and magazines

* Kammerton der Bildhauerkunst. Bemerkungen zur Ausstellung „Kleinplastik und Graphik aus der DDR“ in Moskau, in Sowjetliteratur (deutschsprachige Ausgabe, Moskau), Heft 11/1976
* Kathedrale eines Zeitalters. Zum Panorama-Gemälde Werner Tübkes in Bad Frankenhausen, in Vytvarny Zivot (Bratislava), issue 3/1987; Müvészet (Budapest), issue 11–12/1986; Iskusstvo (Sofia), issue 8/1986; Tvortschestvo (Moskau), issue 9/1986; arta (Bukarest), issue 1/1987

### Articles in the newspaper Marxistische Blätter

* Fünf Schwierigkeiten im Umgang mit der Kunst Willi Sittes, issue 4/1994
* Schreiben über die Kunstgeschichte der DDR oder Anatomie eines Glaubenswechsels, issue 1 and 2/2001

### Articles in the newspaper Icarus

* Häftlingsnummer B 3936. Der arge Weg Heinrich Sussmann [de]s, issue 2/2005
* Die Verhältnisse durchschaubar machen. Laudatio zur Verleihung des Menschenrechtspreises des Vereins GBM an Heidrun Hegewald, Willi Sitte and Walter Womacka, issue 1/2010
* Verbrechen an der deutschen Kultur. Gedanken zum 75. Jahrestag der Eröffnung der Ausstellung Entartete Kunst in München, issue 3–4/2012

### Articles in the daily junge Welt

* Nachdenken in einem beseitigten Mahnmal. Heidrun Hegewald gewidmet, 20 October 2006
* Er ist hier bei uns. Gedanken zum 130. Geburtstag von Pablo Picasso, 25 October 2011
* Theatrum mundi. 14. September 1989: Einweihung des Panoramabildes „Frühbürgerliche Revolution in Deutschland“ von Werner Tübke in Bad Frankenhausen, 13./14 September 2014
* Dialektischer Realismus. Grundbegriff für eine Kunstgeschichte der DDR. Zum Tod des Kunsthistorikers Peter H. Feist, 4 August 2015
* Ein eigenes Urteil bilden. Das Potsdamer Museum Barberini zeigt Kunst aus der DDR – darunter zahlreiche Bilder, die nach 1990 nicht mehr zu sehen waren, 15 November 2017
* (Further more than 100 contributions for press, radio, television and catalogues; lectures and readings at home and abroad)

### Exhibitions

* Personal exhibition of the Moscow painter Tatjana Nasarenko in the Haus der Bürgerschaft Bremen 1986 (opening speech)
* Der eigene Blick. Berliner Kunstkritiker zeigen Kunst ihrer Wahl im Ephraim Palace Berlin 1988 (participation with own collection, catalogue text)
* Personalausstellung des österreichischen jüdischen Malers Heinrich Sussmann im Prussian Heritage Image Archive Berlin 1989 (Konzeption, Organisation, Eröffnungsrede)
* Gerhard Rommel [de] for his 80th birthday. Exhibition in the Klostergalerie Zehdenick 2014 (opening speech)
* Four lives. Two pairs of artists in the Armenian tradition. Exhibition at the Kulturhaus Berlin-Karlshorst 2016 (co-curator, catalogue author, statement on the opening)
* Participation in further numerous exhibitions in Freudenstadt, Wittlich, Seeheim-Jugenheim, Neu-Ulm, in the GBM-Gallery and other Berlin galleries, in Kuopio (Finland), in the Art Gallery Gera, the Protestant Academy Meissen, the Municipal Gallery Eisenhüttenstadt, in the Art Association Templin and others

## Participation in juries

* 100 selected graphics, 100 best posters, selection committee painting and graphics of the X. Kunstausstellung der DDR [de]

## Literature

* Anke Scharnhorst: Michel, Peter in Wer war wer in der DDR? [de] 5th edition. BVolume 2, Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4.

## Awards and honours

* 1983 Verdienstmedaille der DDR [de]
* 1984 Banner of Labor
* Human Rights Award of the Society for the Protection of Civil Rights and Human Dignity 2015 The laudatory speech was held by the painter and graphic artist Heidrun Hegewald [de].