The Wende Museum’s audiovisual archivist, Kate Dollenmayer, presents a free film screening at UC Santa Barbara’s Art, Design, & Architecture Museum. A selection of short educational films and animation from East Germany and Czechoslovakia accompanies the exhibition Fair Trade (on view through April 30) by Los Angeles artist Bari Ziperstein, highlighting the materials, processes, and aesthetics of everyday life during the Cold War. 

About the exhibition Fair Trade:

Ceramicist and sculptor Bari Ziperstein has built an artistic practice at the intersection of traditional craft and feminist critique. Her work examines prevailing contradictory (and controlling) expectations for women to be seductive and appealing in manner and appearance, but also inaccessible and safeguarded. These ideas are the inspiration for her installation at the AD&A Museum.

Fair Trade consists of a series of new ceramic sculptures—vessels and decorative panels—that borrow from and manipulate imagery of Japanese samurai armor and Soviet propaganda directed at women. They are installed in a faux trade-show booth, also crafted by the artist, which is based on specifications for Soviet Russian public information displays and industrial fairs. Complementing her installation are Soviet propaganda posters on special loan from the Wende Museum, where she conducted research that inspired portions of this project.