The concept of struggling for one’s art is subjective. Facing negative criticism and misunderstanding, sacrificing a day job and a nice apartment for self-imposed relative poverty — this is what passes for the struggles of the contemporary Western artist. But for a contingent of East German artists in the late 1970s and through the 1980s, the struggles were far more substantial: Exile, censorship, repression, and imprisonment.

Through the efforts of the Breakthrough Art Organization’s “20 Years After German Unification: Critical Perspectives of Berlin Artists,” 10 quiet heroes humbly invite us to share in their experiences via a series of photographs, sculptures and paintings currently on display in the oft-underutilized lobby of the 515 N. State St. building. The exhibit will be on display through February 7th.

The fall of the Berlin Wall — a historic event we can describe with exactitude and bravado where we were and what we were doing at the time — provides a built-in, familiar context for the exhibit as a whole. Immediately, these works are accessible.

Freedom and liberty are abstract ideas. Here, the art itself enables a tangibility for the senses to digest. The social, economical, and political climates in decades leading up to the Unification have been well documented. Spouses were spies. Confessionals were wiretapped. And Beatles records weren’t purchased — they were smuggled.

“This secret policeman, at the Brandenburg Gate, his gigantic ear, eavesdropping on everybody everywhere … A plastic bag entangled in barbed wire, shaped a bit like a human figure. Such photos were risky — viewed as attacks against the State,” informs featured photographer and former East Berliner Gerald Adam Hahn in a 12 minute documentary entitled “Introduction.”

East Germany’s shift from the German Democratic Republic-controlled state to its accidental deconstruction on November 9, 1989, provided a fertile environment for revolutionary artwork.

“Not every artist feels obligated to chronicle his lifetime … However for me, and maybe for others, life doesn’t just pass by. It leaves its mark on you,” reflected sculptor Hans Scheib.

From Harold Hauswald’s black and white photo of the unprecedented Bruce Springsteen concert in 1988 East Germany to Robert Weber’s eye-calibrating work of new realism displaying the passport of an expatriate, the humanity emanating from each piece is palpable. The viewer will be grateful, if not tearful that he has been welcomed into their world in order to gain a better understanding of what freedom tastes like. The perverse story behind these works sets a high bar for life and art under true tyranny and constraint. And the perennial, imperishable hope demonstrated in these works will quickly reconstruct the fractured heart they will no doubt induce.

Some of us express our want for freedom and liberty by flaunting a political bumper sticker or parading an impotent slogan on a placard. These 10 iconoclasts did it by creating artistic masterworks. They didn’t tout the slogan. They invented it. Art was their placard.