„Unter:Druck” meets TrutnOFF Open Air Festival

The Galerie nEUROPA is hitting the road again. Join us for the third year running at the Czech Woodstock. The TrutnOFF Open Air Festival takes runs from 13 to 16 August 2026 in Bojiště Nature Park in Trutnov, at the foot of the Krkonoše Mountains. The oldest Czech rock festival is celebrating its 42nd anniversary this year.

We’re presenting the exhibition ‘Unter:Druck’. Once there, you’ll have the chance to meet the photographer Michael Biedowicz and Jan Oelker, curator of the nEUROPA gallery.

‘Unter:Druck’ – Parties, Punk and Protest in East Berlin

The title ‘Unter:Druck’ has a double meaning in the German language. On the one hand, it means ‘under pressure’ and, on the other, ‘negative pressure’. The pressure exerted by the repressive system of the GDR on the independent art scene unleashed an enormous amount of creativity. In self-created niches, art escaped state control and expressed its energy in flats, on private grounds, in churches or in cellar rooms. That was the true underground.

In the late GDR, musicians and artists became increasingly rebellious and, despite the threat of reprisals, constantly tested the regime’s limits. In Prenzlauer Berg in East Berlin, a scene emerged involving musicians, writers, visual artists, performers and theatre makers. This was not a closed circle, but rather loose groups of people who withdrew from the official art scene and had no wish to be associated with it. They took the liberty that the state neither wanted nor was able to grant them. Much like in the western part of the city, they broke with conventional norms and created art without rules, in keeping with the spirit of the times, as if the Wall did not exist. In the agony of the grey, crumbling system, they formed a genius-dilettante counterpoint: quirky, bright and loud.

As a photographer, Michael Biedowicz was part of this scene and was friends with artists and musicians. His photographs reflect the spirit of life in the niche communities of East Berlin. They were shot at parties, readings and punk concerts, which formed the ground for protest and counterculture. And to remain with the metaphor: under the pressure of the system, a vacuum emerged, in many areas, not just in the arts, which ultimately caused the system to implode. Out of the ‘anti-establishment’ culture, in the euphoria of the regime’s collapse, an immense creative power for change emerged. This made Berlin, on the brink of the 1990s, probably the most exciting city in the world for a short time.

Photos: Michael Biedowicz (DE)
Curated by: Jan Oelker (DE)

Exhibition contribution by the Dresden Galerie nEUROPA for the “TrutnOFF Open Air Festival 2026: Music and art against the regime / Hudba a umění jako alternativa proti režimu”.

Das Projekt wird gefördert durch den Deutsch-Tschechischen Zukunftsfonds und das Staatsministerium für Soziales, Gesundheit und Gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt. Diese Maßnahme wird mitfinanziert mit Steuermitteln auf Grundlage des vom Sächsischen Landtag beschlossenen Haushaltes im Rahmen des Förderprogramms »Wir für Sachsen«.