"Within the confines of the early 1960s government-controlled art scene of the GDR, Jürgen Wittdorf was miraculously able to publicly develop a historically unique group of homoerotic socialist woodblock prints and linocuts."
"Widely publicized and exhibited at the time, the Zyklus Für die Jugend (1960/61) works were criticized and demonized as "westernized" by the authorities, because Wittdorf sympathetically portrayed rebellious youth, in the shape of jeans-clad street kids and rockers (as later he would portray punks) instead of idealized young socialist party members. Widespread public acclaim especially from young audiences was however able to silence the criticism."
"In Jugend und Sport (1964) Wittdorf seems at first to placate his ideological critics by putting his models in more familiar socialist poses, but subverts the heroics by a surprisingly blatant (and in retrospect very witty) homoeroticism, proving either the naivety or open-mindedness of the state patrons and audiences of the time."
Source: Kunstraum Richard Sorge
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