Quo vadis ars?

The situation in the cultural sector has been described and discussed in numerous interviews, corona diaries, comments and reports in the past few weeks. Our annotated collection of currently 193 sources gathers voices from different sectors and media. This creates a picture of the cultural landscape in crisis, whose temporal transformation can be explored interactively via a dedicated tag cloud.


 

Kulturaufstand in Frankreich . Eine Stunde Theater trotz Lockdown
Cultural Uprising in France . One hour theatrer despite lockdown

by Eberhard Spreng, Eckhard Roelcke (30 Jan 2021)
Original source: Deutschlandfunk Kultur

The mayor of Marseille Benoît Payan, together with other cities and independent theaters, has called for civil disobedience: Theaters should play for one hour in the afternoon. The initiative »Théatres Ouverts«  originally comes from smaller theaters. The mayor of Marseille, Benoît Payan, took up the initiative and thus ensured a large public. In Avignon, where the initiative originated, the short-term opening of the theater was prevented by the police. In other places, poems were read or tango danced.
The contribution of Beno&i circ;t Payan is the announcement of a manifesto that advocates the opening of theaters. The idea is to play mainly outdoors in the south of France to minimize the risk of contagion. The »hour of disobedience« is directed primarily against the government in Paris and here above all against President Emmanuel Macron, who currently pays little attention to culture. However, the attitude of Benoît Payan is very ambivalent, since in the middle of the week he was still urging to follow the rules to contain the pandemic due to the increase in infections.

 

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tag Theater Freie Szene ziviler Ungehorsam Théatres Ouverts Benoît Payan
Performing Arts/ Cinema Interview

Here’s the first Africa-wide survey of the economic impact of COVID-19 on cultural industries

by Ribio Nzeza Bunketi Buse (28 Dec 2020)
Original source: The Conversation

This report refers to a study on the effects of the pandemic for the creative industry in Africa. Quantitative data from Senegal, D.R. Congo, Kenya, Uganda, Namibia and South Africa are compared, but also qualitative data from further African countries evaluated.  The most affected subsector within the cultural industries in Africa was the performing arts whereas the non face to face media are more resilient. Predominantly the informal sector appears to be hit. Similar to reports of the effects in OECD countries a significant number of freelancers and very small siz e of companies are affected. Above all, precarious employments or short time jobs are disproportionately impacted.

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tag Afrika Prekariat Wirtschaftsfaktor informeller Sektor
All sections Bericht

Wie gerecht ist der Orchesterbetrieb? . Die Corona-Krise macht ein Zwei-Klassen-System sichtbar
How fair is the orchestra business? . Corona crisis reveals a two-tier system

by Frederik Hanssen (16 Nov 2020)
Original source: Tagesspiegel

What is the music scene's lobby? This question has been discussed again and again in the last weeks. The permanently employed musicians are represented by the German Orchestra Association. In recent years, this association has negotiated good collective agreements for orchestra members. This means that they are well-positioned - also in comparison to freelance vocal soloists - and can safely get through the crisis, especially since they have relatively secure jobs due to their job at a state-financed institution.
The situation is currently different in the ind ependent scene. Two years ago the organization ›Freo‹, the Association of Free Ensembles and Orchestras in Germany, was founded, but it was intended as a forum for the exchange of experience. During the crisis, it is now lobbying for the independent ensembles and orchestras. This is all but easy, as Frederik Hanssen points out using the example of the German Chamber Orchestra (DKO). The orchestra works with a permanent staff of 20 freelance musicians who are booked for individual projects. Performances and tours are planned and organized by three employees. Although the orchestra has regular customers, most of whom have not returned their tickets in spring, and have extended their subscriptions to a large extent, the orchestra does not benefit from the State Minister of Culture's special fund for independent orchestras. While other orchestras and ensembles can use this fund to pay the salaries of the musicians until the end of the year, the freelance musicians and their orchestras are running out of road. Therefore, 'Freo' is now demanding to compensate this inequality by providing a basic financial security for the members of the free orchestras. This is not only about short-term survival, but also about the question of how state funding can be fairly distributed in the coming years when communal revenues collapse and cultural budgets are cut. The Konzerthaus am Gendarmenmarkt is setting an example of solidarity. Next spring, it will make its halls available to independent formations on 12 evenings for free.

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tag Orchester Orchestervereinigung Freie Orchester Lobby Krise nach der Krise Etatkürzungen
Music Bericht

Durchs Raster gefallen . Kulturschaffende in Coronakrise
Fallen through the cracks . the arts community during Corona crisis

by Sabine Seifert (29 Jul 2020)
Original source: taz

Three months after an initial conversation about her personal situation as an artist during the lockdown, Sabine Seifert meets again with a singer, a visual artist, an actor and a museum educator to talk with them about their experiences during the Corona crisis. The working conditions for the artists are still all but optimal, as the hygiene rules for all cultural fields of work entail restrictions. Many people appreciate the social network that is provided in Germany. Emergency aid and basic security have helped them to survive the last few months financ ially. However, applications for basic security have only increased by about a quarter. Due to the bad aura of basic security called Hartz IV, many people were reluctant to apply.
Even the applications for solo self-employed persons do not take into account the living and working conditions of artists even after three months. Seifert critically observes that in many federal states the cost of living may not be regarded as operating costs, but also the fact that in the second round applications may only be made by tax or accountants is completely ignoring the reality of small and medium-sized enterprises. Although the profession of an artist is fundamentally associated with uncertainty, the general conditions have currently changed radically. No one can predict with certainty how the pandemic will develop. When again which event format will be possible.
Olaf Zimmermann, Managing Director of the German Cultural Council, points out that the working structures on the cultural market have changed in recent years. Although there are fewer artists, there are more solo self-employed people in the field of cultural education, management and technology. Cultural policy has failed to counteract the precarious structures that have emerged here. Basically, according to Olaf Zimmermann, one should think about whether the classic concept of the entrepreneur still applies to artists and cultural workers - especially since they make an important contribution to society.

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tag Soforthilfe Grundsicherung Solidarität Verdi bbk Elisabeth Anschütz Sascha Oliver Bauer Ka Bomhardt Wilko Reinhold Olaf Zimmermann
All sections Bericht

Pro: Kunst ist Kulturverständigung - und deshalb politisch . Pro und Contra Kulturreisen
Pro: Art is cultural understanding - and therefore political . The pros and cons of cultural travel

by Nicolas Freund (05 Jul 2020)
Original source: Süddeutsche Zeitung

Cultural trips are more than luxury? Historically, art has long been reserved only for the ruling classes. If one follows the thesis formulated by the writer John Berger in his essay "Ways of Seeing", the consideration of art is not only a democratic act, but also a place of confrontation with the past precisely because of the detachement of the ruling caste. The change of perspective in the present makes art at the same time an ideal place for the negotiation of social discourses. Therefore, one should not recklessly give up the privilege of participating in a rt events, just because it is a little more difficult to reach exhibition cities at the moment.

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tag Bildende Kunst Kulturtourismus Original Demokratie Austausch
Visual Arts/Design Diskussion

Was wir im Lockdown über das Digitale gelernt haben

by Anika Meier (02 Jun 2020)
Original source: Monopol

The corona crisis has accelerated the shift to the digital world. Art exhibitions were also presented online in times of lockdown. If there is no other choice, even these institutions who have tended to avoid online media are now turning to social media to communicate and exchange ideas. In her column, Anika Meier examines what we have learned with regard to the digital world during the crisis, presenting various activities of the recent months, from livestreams via Instagram to online viewing rooms and augmented reality. In doing so, she urges art critics to think about new standards for evaluating art on the Net. Naive euphoria or unreflected criticism of the fact that virtual exhibitions cannot replace real museum visits do not do justice to either the artistic-curatorial claim or the medium.

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tag Online Viewing Room Streaming Augmented Reality Hans Ulrich Obrist Iwan Wirth Koo Jeong A Krise als Chance
Visual Arts/Design Kolumne

Kultur-Sofortprogramm: »Das reicht nicht aus«
Immediate Action Program for Culture: »This is not sufficient«

by Olaf Zimmermann, Jürgen Deppe (25 May 2020)
Original source: NDR Kultur

For small and medium-sized cultural institutions, the resumption of their program in compliance with the rules of hygiene entails expenditures. For this purpose, support can be applied for from the "Neustart" emergency program launched by the federal Ministers of State for Cultur, Monika Grütters. Last week, Grütters announced that the originally budgeted funds had to be doubled because of the high demand. Olaf Zimmermann welcomes this initiative of the Ministers of State for Culture and the gradual return to normality in the cultural sector, but also points out in an interview with the NRD that this program is not sufficient. On the one hand, it merely involves reallocated funds from the State Minister of Culture's budget that are currently not needed elsewhere, but on the other hand it also requires a specific culture pool to support the industry. Here he sees the federal government as having a duty. In the individual German states, the freelance artists have received support in very different ways, but this support will expire at the end of June. Here it is urgently required to think about new concepts, because the crisis is far from over for the cultural sector.

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tag Kulturförderung Monika Grütters Neustart Kultur
All sections Interview

Wenn der Atem nach Freiheit dürstet . Endlich wieder im Konzert
When the breath thirsts for freedom . Finally in concert again

by Manuel Brug (20 May 2020)
Original source: Welt

For eight weeks and two days, Manuel Brug, the feuilleton contributor to the German newspaper Welt, did not attend any more cultural events. For the first live concert in Corona times he is travelling to Wiesbaden for the slimmed-down May Festival, which opens with the world-class bass and Corona rebel Günther Groissböck. Even though it was painfully experienced during the Corona era that culture is not relevant to the system and that politics is merely settling between gambling and brothel, this field report encourages the belief that the cultural industry can slowly reboot.

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tag Klassische Musik Konzert Systemrelevanz Günther Groissböck Hygieneregeln Wiesbaden
Music Erlebnisbericht

When Will We Want to Be in a Room Full of Strangers Again? . Theater, an industry full of optimists, is reckoning with a heartbreaking realization.

by Helen Lewis (12 May 2020)
Original source: The Atlantic

Theatre matters to Britain not only in economic term being a drive of tourism. As Helen Lewis underlines commercial run theatres are more interconnected with the subsidized theatre sector as expected. Especially smaller theatres function as percolators for the future careers of actors and directors. This ecosystem is no under threat: The state funding distributed by The Arts Council spent  £160 million ($200 million) as crisis grants to organizations and individual workers in need. This helped indeed theatres to survive. But the question looms large what will come after when these funds will be exhausted this summer. Above all the economic but the hygiene restrictions will reduce the program and the size of the paying audience. But the author fears in the context of the pandemic also a shift in quality from “excellence” to “relevance.”

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tag Arts Council Theater United Kingdom
Performing Arts/ Cinema Bericht

New New Deal . Toward a New Era of Social Imagination

by Hans Ulrich Obrist (05 May 2020)
Original source: artnet news

In this essay curator Hans Ulrich Obrist recalls conversations with photographer and film maker Helen Levitt (1913–2009) and reflects public programs to support artists in the US which were initiated a few years after the Great Depression in 1929 in the context of president Roosevelt’s New Deal. Interestingly, he mentions an early Mexican program in 1926 with artists paid by the government to decorate public buildings with murals. A similar scope had the federal US program Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) in 1934. The most prominent program was the Federal Art Project (FAP) starting in 1935 to support fine arts and practical arts by commissions, but also to promote educational services resulting in 107 new community centers giving arts and crafts classes to everybody. But demands as formulated by the American Society of Painters Sculptors and Gravers to pay rental fees to living artists for exhibited art works didn’t succeed.
Obrist not only demands a New Deal for the arts in times of the Pandemic, but also connects it conceptually to the ecological question referring to Jeremy Rifkin’s book “Green New Deal”.

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tag New Deal Kunstvermittlung Stipendien Auftragsarbeit Ausstellungshonorar Kunst am Bau Ökologie USA
Visual Arts/Design Statement

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The signet of facing arts joining the faces of STORM.

Facing arts is a non-profi project. Feel free to support it and get in touch with us!

The Team

Facing arts is a projet by STORM.

STORM is an acronym playing with the initials by Miriam Seidler & Tim Otto Roth, who are hit both by the Corona crisis. Dr. Miriam Seidler is a scholar in German literature and currently works as specialist in public relations. Dr. Tim Otto Roth is a scholar in art and science history and works as a conceptual artist and composer. He is known for his huge projects in public space, cooperations with leading scientific institutions and his immersive sound and light installations. Miriam and Tim collaborate regularly for years. With facing arts they reaslize their first common art project.
You find more informatin on both initiators on www.miriamseidler.de and www.imachination.net.

Special thanks to Paco Croket for the tag cloud programming!

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