Enlarge image (© Reinhard Stangl) Exhibition Celebrates 20th Anniversary of German Unification at First Amendment Center April 18 – May 8; Educational Component Brings Together Dissident Artists from former East Germany with Nashvillians Involved in the City’s Sit-Ins

Breakthrough Art Organization, founded in 2009 to champion artists whose works are a means of overcoming political, social and personal challenges, is bringing its inaugural exhibition and education program to the John Seigenthaler Center at Vanderbilt University April 18 to May 8. Nashville is the first stop for Breakthrough! Twenty Years After German Unification – Critical Perspectives of Berlin Artists, which will tour five cities in the U.S. throughout 2010.

Breakthrough Art Organization, based in Washington, DC, will host a discussion forum April 20 in partnership with the First Amendment Center, which is headquartered at the Seigenthaler Center. The discussion will bring together 10 visual artists from former East Germany and Nashville’s participants in America’s Civil Rights Movement. The artists, who endured repression, imprisonment and exile for the sake of free expression prior to the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall and the resultant reunification of Germany in1990, will exchange ideas and compare experiences with those involved in the historic Nashville lunch counter sit-ins. The sit-ins mark their 50th anniversary this year and were seminal events of the era that paved the way for integration. Moderators for the forum, which will be held at the Center, are John Seigenthaler, founder of the First Amendment Center; Jeff Thinnes, founder of Breakthrough; and Gene Policinski, Executive Director of the Center.

“By launching Breakthrough at the First Amendment Center, among the foremost institutions in the country supporting the First Amendment and the core freedoms it ensures, we are sending a strong message that Breakthrough is as much about the artists’ determination to freely express themselves as it is about their compelling works of art,” Thinnes said. “Their courageous leadership links them with people in other cultures and other times, including Nashville’s Civil Rights heroes, who were willing to risk everything for freedom.” Breakthrough also encourages teachers and students throughout the Nashville area to attend the exhibition and engage directly with the art.

“The First Amendment has provided Americans with unparalleled freedom to speak their minds, write as they will and express themselves in the arts without fear of government repression,” said Policinski, who noted that the Breakthrough exhibition will be shown in conjunction with the Center’s permanent exhibition, Protest and Petition in American Life. “The elements of the Breakthrough program will remind Americans in Nashville and elsewhere of how precious and rare those freedoms are and how recently, in areas of the world such as the former East Germany, they were restricted and repressed by government.”

Most of the 10 East German visual artists whose works are featured in the program will be in Nashville for the first week of the exhibition and on hand for the following special events:

• April 18: Opening reception by invitation only from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Center

• April 19: Junior High and High School Day featuring opportunities for area students to
interact with the artists

• April 20: Civil Rights Discussion Forum from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Center. Free and
open to the public; seating is limited. For reservations, call: (615) 727-1333.

• April 22: Artist-to-Artist Forum, an exchange between the German artists and their
Nashville counterparts from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. By invitation only.

Breakthrough is substantially underwritten by a grant from the Federal Republic of Germany, as well as contributions from participating foundations.

The First Amendment Center’s Protest exhibit and the Breakthrough exhibit are free and open to the public from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

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