DAS MINSK is the latest project of the Hasso Plattner Foundation. Located in Potsdam, southwest of Berlin, the new exhibition space presents modern and contemporary art, as well as art from the former GDR, in new contexts. This catalogue for the two inaugural exhibitions links two artists from the Hasso Plattner Collection: GDR painter Wolfgang Mattheuer and Canadian photographer and filmmaker Stan Douglas. As the exhibitions direct their gaze to nature and the urban landscape of Potsdam, the volume presents familiar and novel perspectives on their work, complemented by a wide range of viewpoints on the motifs of landscape and (allotment) gardening in art. Beyond art theoretical voices, the book also features numerous experts addressing the socio-political dimensions of the subject-matter.

New essays on the evolution of cultural memory of the former German Democratic Republic since 1989-90 and its importance for Germany's continuing unification process. Twenty years on from the dramatic events that led to the opening of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the GDR, the subjective dimension of German unification is still far from complete. The nature of the East German state remains a matter of cultural as well as political debate. This volume of new research focuses on competing memories of the GDR and the ways they have evolved in the mass media, literature, and film since 1989-90. Taking as its point ofdeparture the impact of iconic visual images of the fall of the Wall on our understanding of the historical GDR, the volume first considers the decade of cultural conflict that followed unification and then the emergence of a morecomplex and diverse "textual memory" of the GDR since the Berlin Republic was established in 1999. It highlights competing generational perspectives on the GDR era and the unexpected "afterlife" of the GDR in recent publications.The volume as a whole shows the vitality of eastern German culture two decades after the demise of the GDR and the centrality of these memory debates to the success of Germany's unification process. Contributors: Daniel Argeles, Stephen Brockmann, Arne De Winde, Wolfgang Emmerich, Andrea Geier, Hilde Hoffmann, Astrid Koehler, Karen Leeder, Andrew Plowman, Gillian Pye, Benjamin Robinson, Catherine Smale, Rosemary Stott, Dennis Tate, Frederik VanDam, Nadezda Zemanikova. Renate Rechtien is Lecturer in German Studies, and Dennis Tate is Emeritus Professor of German Studies, both at the University of Bath, UK.