 |
Promoting contemporary art with public resources? |
|
The relationship between public
funds, institution and art is one of the lines of work of the
Centre d’Art Santa Mònica. On 18 April 2005, Lydia
Hartl, head of Munich City Council’s Department of Culture,
gave a talk in which she traced the principal guiding lines for
investment in art and culture in Munich, a city that is similar
to Barcelona in many respects. We feel her experience to be of
relevance – in the same way as the talk given last December
by the former British Minister for Culture, Chris Smith – at
this moment in time when the models for public action in culture
and art are being defined.
We publish below a summary of Lydia Hartl’s
talk.
|
LYDIA HARTL
Munich, which for a long time has been the secret capital, and for even longer the leading German city from a cultural point of view, has undergone a considerable change of profile in the last twenty years: from being famous as the city of beer, it has now become the international city of dreams, symbol of multiculturalism. It is Germany’s main centre for science and economics, it ranks third in the world in terms of new technologies and new media, and it is on a par with Milan, the European city of design par excellence, in occupying a position at the head of “high culture”, but it also offers a wide variety of incursions into art and subcultural creative work of an innovative, experimental and interdisciplinary nature.
The principal strategies for promoting the city and the Land differ
when it comes to attaching importance to support for contemporary
art. While activities in the Free State of Bavaria concentrate
almost solely on figurative art, the city is clearly establishing
itself as a centre for the promotion of contemporary art
and is attracting a wider circle of the population to its
prolific cultural events, which is not merely reflected
in its affordable prices. For instance, it is financing
the best network of libraries in Germany, as well as the Volkshochschule or
public training establishments, which are the most extensive
in Europe. This involves recognition for higher standards
not only in the field of art but also in education for
everyone.
Munich and Barcelona have many features in common: they describe themselves as cultural cities with a long tradition; in the early years of the twentieth century they played a leading role (in art nouveau and the beginning of the avant-gardes); they have a tense relationship with the capital of the country; and in the absence of any real competition, they are “the other centre”. In addition, both are capital cities, of Bavaria and Catalonia respectively, which are characterised by a considerable degree of self-autonomy, and that is how they see themselves. The quality of life, in general, is of a high standard and there are economic similarities too: both are leaders in the services sector.
|
|
|
Urban life, with all the diversity inherent in it, has changed a great deal, and in the twenty-first century it will become the principal style of living. Support for art and culture should reflect this. For instance, it will be particularly important to reconcile two trends. On the one hand, with the globalisation and diversification of lifestyles, the present foundations of cultural life are beginning to fall into oblivion as a result of decontextualisation. Moreover, there is still a long way to go before the reduction in the total rate of building in Germany reaches its nadir. It is therefore very important to recover social and cultural relations in three ways, i.e. through research, representation and the communication of results and of the current effects of our cultural heritage. Urban society is characterised essentially by the permanent dynamics of innovation, experimentation and unusual elements, either through other cultures and new technologies, which play an important role on a day to day basis, or through a |
|
changing aesthetic. The stimulation of culture and of art must also fight for the promotion and implementation of innovations, for dialogue with our cultural heritage, for historical awareness in the context of supra-regional relations, for the promotion of artists and creators of culture who are active in the city, and for facilitating access to individual actions by a wider public.
However, although the promotion of culture using public resources does not, unfortunately, form part of the legally established canons, art and culture are essentially forms of expression and elements of the quality of life and of the critical questioning of styles of living. Culture protects, characterises and values community life fundamentally through social agreements and aesthetic forms in an ever-changing process. For this reason, culture is as important to the life of the individual as it is to the collective good. This is not only valid for an active and creative realisation of culture. Participation in culture also has fundamental effects: the pleasure in art and the joy of living, the widening of our horizons and changes in our perceptions, additional study and the acquisition of knowledge, social integration and the formation of an identity. It is important therefore to emphasise the breadth and quality of the culture on offer in Munich (in absolute terms and in comparison with other cities): the significance of culture as a fundamental constituent must find a place in the public consciousness. Only in this way is it possible to achieve the attention and the political commitment to make the promotion of culture an aim in itself.
|
|
For this reason we believe that it is our duty to keep our cultural heritage alive and produce new content, and to do so mainly in fields are not obscured by others, particularly by commercial agents. We create possibilities, spaces and a public for art and culture, in which we produce, explore and initiate, connect and cooperate, and we provide financial help and guidance. In doing so, we are very demanding when it comes to facing local and international competition, and we take the city to the world and bring the world to the city. We serve all sectors of the population, we encourage critical awareness, further studies and training, the joy of living and an urban state of mind, as well as people’s identification with the town or city in which they live. In this way we make an essential contribution to social well-being and to on-going development (and all this in an area that is only apparent).
The pressure for legitimisation is strong, and competition for limited funds is fierce. For this reason it is particularly important to draw up both quantitative and qualitative criteria for evaluating our programme. A strong collective spirit among creators of art and culture would certainly be useful in helping us achieve our aims. Furthermore, it is also essential for the cultural sector to reinforce awareness of economic thinking and dealing and to improve opportunities for training. This includes fundamental restructuring – a path that, in Munich, we have recently followed successfully: organisations have to respond to our functions rather than go against them. Here I would like to emphasise that privatisation, in my opinion, is certainly not the right road to take.
|
| Culture is the totality of the spiritual, material and social aspects that characterise a society. As well as artistic creativity, culture is also formed of ways of life, values, traditions and currents of thought. Culture thus becomes a key concept and also the principal competence for the models of behaviour, norms and values that in a society characterise the representations of the past, the present and the future. For us, the promotion of culture consists in developing these key competences and also in maintaining and continuing to develop the rich variety of cultural life. Cultural institutions are the place of learning for the future. In a society with certain common behavioural patterns that are increasingly filled with events (as early as 1967, Guy Debord spoke about the entertainment society), cultural institutions also have to include this fact in their spaces and their activities in an accessible way, with a standard of quality that goes beyond commercial aspects. We are undergoing not an iconic shift but rather an oral shift, a corporal or cultural
|
|
|
|
 |
|
| Exhibition Shanghai
Surprise a Lothringer Dreizehn, Munic,
2004 |
|
|
|
shift in which creativity is the first and most important subject for the twenty-first century after the information and communication factors. The more closely we explore things and forms, the more they influence us, inciting us to experiment, to investigate new, different, unknown relations, and consequently to learn more. This affects contemporary art in all sectors, and it is urbanity as a way of life that requires a culture that is diversified, critical and orientated towards the future, as an integral part of living. For this reason, its prospects can only be developed simultaneously by filling the content with the forms of culture, the themes and experimental methods of “high culture” and mass culture. And these must emerge in the dialogue between the people and the institutions of a civil society whose banner is the goal of a positive, creative, active urbanity.
Omissions often give rise to future work: one unavoidable omission is that since the early 1980s, at a decision-making level, there has been no study of how the younger generations and young people (those under 45) understand culture; meanwhile they use other ways of obtaining information and their interest in culture is manifested mainly in audiovisual formats. Consequently it is not sufficient for cultural institutions to organise special programmes for children and young people; they must also get parents to participate. Another inescapable omission is the unanswered question of what form should be given to a canon of high quality training, a canon of thought, the values and theories that were one day moulded by the objectivising spirit of a culture, a linguistic community and a nation. What are the cultural qualifications we need for the future? One possibility might be offered by a union on the basis of the common interests of Europe and in particular of the cities that are faced with a similar situation. It was for this purpose that the EUROCITIES association was set up in Barcelona in 2002 as a grouping of some of the larger cities in the member states of the European Union. What comes next? It is not enough to make people aware of the fundamental importance of the cultural factor in continued development (and also in the new search for a European identity, which needs to be redefined). It is necessary to formulate indicators, the aims of the actions and the quality controls for implementing them. But this cannot be carried out if there is no decisive political will to do so. We therefore need structural measures, and these measures require one thing above all others and in addition to enthusiasm: money. Without accepting that there is also a need to provide significant resources to fund cultural policies for the promotion of art, culture and training, all aspirations to consider culture as a major field come to nothing. Our work, the work of creators of culture, is to publicise in a convincing way the fact that creativity is the raw material of the twenty-first century. And this can only work with team spirit and exceptional results. I trust that we will all have the necessary courage and enthusiasm to achieve it. |
|
|
