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.


 

»Vielen von uns droht die Supermarktkasse«
»Many of us are at risk to sit at the supermarket checkout«

by Heinz Rudolf Kunze (17 Sep 2020)
Original source: NDR Info

In an interview with the NDR, the German singer and songwriter Heinz Rudolf Kunze talks about his experiences during the Corona pandemic and the situation of the music industry. All the central topics of the discussion are addressed in the interview. The picture he draws is depressing. In the music industry, too, live performance is the most important source of income today. CDs are primarily produced to promote concerts. Kunze openly calls streaming an exploitation, because the musicians cannot finance themselves from the cents they receive. Even successful accompanying musicians can only survive the Corona crisis by working in other industries. Although open-air concerts could be held in the summer, the number of visitors was usually limited. In contrast to the adjacent gastronomy, the event industry has to fulfill strict hygiene requirements. Kunze doesn't mince his words when it comes to the regulations that vary from region to region. Here "little princes" are at work, who rule arbitrarily. In autumn and winter, no concerts are possible. His own tour has been postponed until spring; whether it can actually take place is written in the stars.
For the future Kunze hopes that the cultural industry will be recognized as an economic factor. At the same time, the cultural offer in Germany, which according to its perception is the largest in the world, must be maintained. This requires the prudent promotion by politics. Kunze equates the breaking away of this offer with the deforestation of the rainforest. Thus he chooses a very drastic picture for the danger in which he currently sees his industry.

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tag Popmusik Hygieneregeln Berufsverbot stiller Tod Streaming Konzerte
Music Interview

Culture shock: COVID-19 and the cultural and creative sectors . OECD Policy Responses to Coronavirus (COVID-19)

by Ekaterina Travkina, Pier Luigi Sacco, Benedetta Morari (07 Sep 2020)
Original source: OECD

The 50-pages long report of the OECD analyzes the serious socio-economic consequences for the cultural and creative industries, which are the most affected by the crisis besides tourism, using extensive sources and figures.  The effects vary regionally and according to sub-sectors. Whereas many performing artists are currently without employment, the game industry is booming.  Aglomerations in particular are affected, and with them the ecosystem of countless freelancers and suppliers, which is particularly threatened - implying long-term consequences.
In addition to this detailed analysis, the authors also provide examples of various public and private measures to support the sectors. The authors emphasize that public measures are often inappropriate because the creative workers do not fit into classical support frameworks. In the appendix, the measures are compared in tabular form, sorted by country.
The authors not only point out the economic importance of the cultural and creative industries, but also, especially in view of a Postcovid19 era, the immaterial importance as a driver of innovation in the economy and society as a whole, with synergies especially for education and health.

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tag OECD Wirtschaftsfaktor postcovid19 Bildung Ballungszentren
All sections Wissenschaftliches Paper

Kinos in Not . Betreiber fordern finanzielle Hilfen – und blicken neidisch nach Bayern
Cinemas in need . operators demand financial aid - and look enviously to Bavaria

by Tim Spark (05 Sep 2020)
Original source: Handelsblatt

The film industry is suffering from the Corona crisis. Above all, German cinema operators do not see how they can maintain their program offerings in the long term. Michael Pawlowski, co-partner of the Filmpalast Group, reports a 50 percent drop in visitors in North Rhine-Westphalia. In federal states with stricter visitor regulations - in NRW only one seat has to be vacated - the decline is even more serious. This means that cinema operations are currently being run from reserves, as the revenues are not sufficient to cover them.
This is the situation that 68 med ium-sized, family-run movie theaters have to address in an open letter to Monika Grütters. The cinema operators need financial support and a relaxation of the hygiene rules. Since the movie theaters are well ventilated and the visitors do not speak during the screening, the risk of infection is lower in the cinema than in the office, according to a study by the Hermann Rietschel Institute of the Technical University of Berlin.
But it is not only the rules of distance that make life difficult for cinema operators. Film distributors are currently holding back on film releases because the number of visitors is currently not very attractive.
Although the German Minister of State for Culture has already released funds to support cinemas, these funds are tied to conversion, modernization and equipment measures and are therefore not helping to save the cinemas in the current liquidity squeeze.
In Bavaria, there is currently an aid program in place that compensates cinema operators for every visitor they have less than last year. In the other federal states, this model is seen as an opportunity to at least cover the fixed costs of the cinemas and prevent a cinema from dying out.

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tag Kinobetreiber Filmwirtschaft Neustart Kultur Filmproduktion Monika Grütters Hygieneregeln
Performing Arts/ Cinema Bericht

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

Hilferuf der Galeristen in NRW
Cry for help by art dealers in North Rhine-Westphalia

by Rupert Pfab (28 Apr 2020)
Original source: WDR 3

The two Düsseldorf gallery owners, Daniela Steinfeld and Rupert Pfab, sent an impassioned letter to the state government in North Rhine-Westphalia. In addition to the Minister for Culture and Science Isabel Pfeiffer-Poensgen, they also address Prime Minister Armin Laschet and the Minister of Economy Andreas Pinkwart. They not only call for a drop in VAT to 7 percent to support the galleries in the long term, but above all for a special purchase budget for the purchase of art for museums and foundations. With the purchase of contemporary art, the gallery owners are c onvinced that the art business could be given meaningful support in the economic crisis that is coming up to us.

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tag Galerien Kunstmarkt Kunstförderung Ankaufsetat Mehrwertsteuer
Visual Arts/Design Interview

'The death of theater' . Tokyo Met Theater director’s stand against coronavirus closures

by Ben K. (05 Mar 2020)
Original source: Japan Today

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's address to the Japanese people on 27 February 2020 is not only met with acceptance in Japan, which is keen to strike a balance. There are also protests against his request to organisers of sports and cultural events to postpone or cancel events in the following two weeks. Hideki Noda, playwright, director, actor and artistic director of the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, doubts the recommended closures. His statement, which he published on the website NODAMAP, caused heated discussions on the net. Noda emphasises that theatre, unlike sporting events, can only be realised with an audience. His great fear is that it will be difficult to reopen theatres.For him, a closure always carries the danger of the »death of the theatre«.

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tag Japan Theater Hideki Noda Schließung Tod des Theaters
Performing Arts/ Cinema Bericht

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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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