In Germany, selective government investment in the arts has given rise to cultural workers who want to have their cake and eat it, argues Ido Nahari.
Museums are strange. Serving as one of few establishments claiming to represent both the past and the future, their colossal mandate warrants scrutiny, more so in Berlin than in most other places. For a couple of decades after East and West Germany shook hands and collapsed walls in 1989, state-funded art institutions affirmed their progressive outlook by winking at their histories: How could we not set the groundwork for an equitable tomorrow when judging our deeds of yesteryear?
Bureaucrats and politicians were eager to rebrand the metropolitan as a capital of culture. Doing so meant pouring hefty amounts of state funds into museums, festivals, and galleries such as the Berlinale festivals, the House of World Cultures, the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, the New Society for Visual Arts, and more. Investing in cultural capital promised returns in economic revenues. These are just some noticeable examples of progressive spaces that put taxpayers’ earnings to good use.
This seems like a calculated quid pro quo, bartering that pleases officials and cultural workers alike. But while Germany presented itself then as an indulging patron of the arts to the public and private institutions it funded, it simultaneously demolished shared cultural spaces. Creativity has been privatized. Communes and squats around town were struck down as police charged in...Keep reading on Hyperallegenic.
Museums are strange. Serving as one of few establishments claiming to represent both the past and the future, their colossal mandate warrants scrutiny, more so in Berlin than in most other places. For a couple of decades after East and West Germany shook hands and collapsed walls in 1989, state-funded art institutions affirmed their progressive outlook by winking at their histories: How could we not set the groundwork for an equitable tomorrow when judging our deeds of yesteryear?
Bureaucrats and politicians were eager to rebrand the metropolitan as a capital of culture. Doing so meant pouring hefty amounts of state funds into museums, festivals, and galleries such as the Berlinale festivals, the House of World Cultures, the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, the New Society for Visual Arts, and more. Investing in cultural capital promised returns in economic revenues. These are just some noticeable examples of progressive spaces that put taxpayers’ earnings to good use.
This seems like a calculated quid pro quo, bartering that pleases officials and cultural workers alike. But while Germany presented itself then as an indulging patron of the arts to the public and private institutions it funded, it simultaneously demolished shared cultural spaces. Creativity has been privatized. Communes and squats around town were struck down as police charged in...Keep reading on Hyperallegenic.