Christine Schlegel is one of the artists in the Wende Museum’s (of the Cold War) current
exhibition The Medea Insurrection: Radical Women Artists Behind the Iron Curtain, drawn from the Dresden Albertinum’s more expansive show. While they remind of our own radical feminist artists of the earlier 70’s decade, these artists were living under more restrictive regimes in the still repressive Eastern bloc countries in the 80’s and appear in a delayed rebelliousness that was finally allowed to flourish. Schlegel’s practice was not just painting but extended to performance and postcards and the bonds that she formed with fellow East German artists gave heft to their individual work. This 1984 painting is of one of her dance collaborators Fine Kwiatkowski. The Wende is such an anomaly in LA where huge museums are constantly going up. Instead it surprises in the middle of Culver City with its tight focus and elegant gardens in the diminutive former home of the National Guard set up to fight Russia.