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.


 

Deutsche Filmbranche sucht Auswege aus der Corona-Krise . Filmkunstmesse in Leipzig
German film industry seeks ways out of the Corona crisis . Film art fair in Leipzig

by Ole Steffen (17 Sep 2020)
Original source: mdr Kultur

The film art fair takes place in Leipzig. The event was the first industry meeting in Germany since the beginning of the Corona crisis and thus also served to reflect on the current situation.
As an introduction to a panel discussion at the Alte Handelsbörse in Leipzig, the Minister of State for Culture, Monika Grütters, had the opportunity to make a statement on cultural funding during the Corona crisis. This was followed by a panel discussion with, among others, Carlo Chatrian, festival director of Berlin, and Michael Kölmel, managing director of Weltkino distribution. The latter assessed the film industry's funding awards - for producers, distributors and cinemas - as fundamentally positive, but complained that film distributors only receive funding for German films. Since the film business is now international, this hardly helps at all. Monika Grütters pointed out that the extra billion for culture is financed by taxpayers' money, which is why it is necessary to look very closely at how the funding is distributed.

International films played an important role in the discussion, because blockbusters from America usually attract visitors to the cinemas. At present, US films are being held back by German distributors, which is why many cinema owners complain that they are not only restricted by hygiene rules, but that the reduced number of films on offer also attracts hardly any visitors to the cinemas. Carlo Chatrian, festival director of the Berlinale, pointed out that defocusing American productions could also be an advantage. He also sees therein an opportunity to stimulate a new reflection on the quality of films and a European film culture.

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tag Filmindustrie Filmverleiher Filmkunstmesse Blockbuster Leipzig Monika Grütters Carlo Chatrian
Performing Arts/ Cinema Bericht

Wir sind ein Ökosystem . Krise des Kunstmarkts
We are an eco system . Crisis of the art market

by Deborah Schamoni, Esther Schipper, Catrin Lorch (11 Sep 2020)
Original source: Süddeutsche Zeitung

With the exception of Art Cologne, all major art fairs have been cancelled in 2020. On the occasion of the traditional gallery tours, which open the cultural autumn in Berlin, Cologne, Düsseldorf and Munich, gallery owners Esther Schipper and Deborah Schamoni are talking about the state of the industry in Corona Autumn.
The art trade is not down, but the situation is serious. Whereas international collectors traditionally attended the gallery openings in the fall, they are now largely attended by a local audience. With the collectors, not only is there a lack of income, but the concentration on local business also leads to a complete breakdown of the exchange at fairs. Whether the time left for written contacts can compensate for this will be seen in the near future. The gallery owners agree, however, that the losses cannot be compensated for by a virtual presence - be it their own homepage or the pages set up by the trade fairs. Although it would be possible to sell works by well-known artists, the newcomers have little chance of attracting attention.
On the other hand, the gallery owners are well aware that the art market will have to change in the coming years. Climate change and Corona will become a task for the art market in the coming months and years - even if the gallery owners have to admit that their artists have so far shown little consideration for the climate.
It is still uncertain whether the galleries can really be helped by government support. At the very least, this is an appreciation of the galleries' work. Although they view the funds earmarked for purchases in the Neustart Kultur program positively, they see a reduction in VAT on sales as a guarantee for the kind of sales boom the industry currently needs.

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tag Kunstmarkt Kunstmessen Mehrwertsteuer Neustart Kultur Ankaufsetat Klimabilanz Art Cologne virtuelles Angebot
Visual Arts/Design Interview

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

Lieber Maler, male mir! . Diskussion über Kunst in Coronakrise
Dear painter, paint for me! . Discussion on art during Corona crisis

by Ingo Arend (08 Jul 2020)
Original source: TAZ

Under the title »Painting by Numbers - Art in the Corona Crisis«, the Green Party in the German Bundestag invited to a discussion about a group that currently plays hardly any role in the public discourse about the Cornona Crisis: the visual artists. At the moment, there is great concern that the money from the economic stimulus package will flow into the support of museums and cultural institutions, but that the artists themselves will go away empty-handed.
The author Ingo Arndt is somewhat irritated by the fact that in the discussion about possible s olutions to the precarious situation of  artists, the idea of a New Deal, which Hans Ulrich Obrist brought up in April, has not been taken up. A large-scale acquisition project for museums and public institutions launched by the German government could offer a way out of the crisis by commissioning visual artists.

 

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tag Grundeinkommen Neustart Kultur Konjunkturpaket Die Grünen Lobby New Deal Erhard GrundlHans Ulrich Obrist
Visual Arts/Design Bericht

Das Eine-Milliarde-Euro-Baby
The One-Billion-Euro-Baby

by Dirk Peitz (05 Jun 2020)
Original source: Zeit

Dirk Peitz explores the question of how the crisis of culture in Germany can be described exactly and who is currently bearing the costs that arise in the cultural sector. The »latent lack of systemic relevance« could become a problem for the industry if the economic crisis becomes more severe or lasts longer than currently expected. While the approximately 1.7 million employees are currently an argument in favour of artists, cultural funding could be discontinued very quickly in times of tight budgets.

tag Monika Grütters Konjunkturpaket Kulturförderung Systemrelevanz
All sections Analyse

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

Hygieneregeln . Dem Publikum stehen keine leichten Zeiten bevor
Hygiene Guidelines . The audience is not facing easy times.

by Jörg Häntzschel (19 May 2020)
Original source: Süddeutsche Zeitung

In the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Jörg Häntzschel takes a critical look at the hygiene rules that the Ministers of Culture of the federal states have drawn up together with Monika Grütters, federal Minister of State for Culture, for theaters, opera houses and concert halls. The many interventions and specifications for the operation of the theaters make it clear that even the reopening will be associated with heavy financial losses if the distance rule of 1.50 meters distance has to be implemented. In addition, not only the air conditioning technology must be adapted, but also the health of the visitors and the distance of the employees - i.e. the artistic actors on stage and during rehearsals - must be kept in mind. Only a small ray of hope remains here that the regulations are to apply to the whole of Germany and that not every federal state will introduce its own rules. But what concerns Häntzschel more than the concrete hygiene rules is the way in which artists are currently treated in political discourse. On the one hand, art is transfigured to a kind of »secular universal religion«, which is supposed to be a »therapy against loneliness, a weapon against populism and the humus of democracy«. The author sees a form of »cultural war economy« in the very detailed recommendations as to how the houses should fill the time until the resumption of play. After all, the paper shows little confidence in the creativity of the industry, which is not only given the marching orders by the ministers, but also the way to go.

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tag Theater Kino Oper Hygieneregeln Universalreligion Monika Grütters kulturelle Kriegswirtschaft
Performing Arts/ Cinema Bericht

Kultur in der Corona-Krise . Erwacht endlich aus der Schockstarre!
Culture during Corona Crisis . Finally wake up from freeze mode!

by Marco Frei, Christian Wildhagen (01 May 2020)
Original source: Neue Züricher Zeitung

Translation

tag Klassische Musik Konzerthäuser Gleichbehandlung Bundesliga Großveranstaltungen Onlineangebote Hygieneregeln
Music Beitrag

Die Aussichten: grau bis düster . Künstler und die Corona-Krise
The prospects: grey to gloomy . Artists and the Corona crisis

by Eva-Maria Magel (22 Apr 2020)
Original source: Frankurter Allgemeine Zeitung

The Hessian Minister of Economics Tarek Al-Wazir has written to the German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Peter Altmeier. He is not only concerned that many artists are currently falling through the ranks of emergency aid, but also that there are no uniform regulations for the industry in the individual federal states. This is all the more dramatic because it is precisely the cultural and creative industries that will be affected the longest by the effects of the crisis. A solution to the problem hasn't appeared at the horizon so far. Municipal aid funds and p rivate fundraising campaigns are a current attempt to prevent the worst from happening.

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tag Hessen Soforthilfe Hartz IV Großveranstaltungen Tarek Al-Wazir Peter Altmaier
All sections Bericht

Sehr geehrte Frau Staatsministerin Professor Monika Grütters
Dear Miss Minister of State for Culture Professor Monika Grütters

by Lisa Batiashvili, Matthias Goerne, Thomas Hengelbrock, Anne-Sophie Mutter, René Pape, Christian Thielemann (19 Apr 2020)
Original source: offener Brief

Representing all the well-known and unknown artists, the signatories to the open letter turn to Monika Grütters for support. They are disappointed with the offer of the Minister of State for Culture that artists can apply for social welfare and that there are few other offers of help for the cultural sector. This reveals that art is understood as a luxury for good times and is not equated to other industries.

tag Grundsicherung Monika Grütters Kunst als Luxus Lisa Batiashvili Matthias Goerne Thomas Hengelbrock Anne-Sophie Mutter René Pape Christian Thielemann
Music offener Brief

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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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