“Together we are stronger”: Produzentengalerien and Kunst Verein in Germany

by Manuela Castiglione | May 12, 2011 in Weaving Relations | 1 Comment

Nowadays Berlin is considered to be the Mecca of culture and art in Europe, the “place to be” for artists from all over the world who want to enrich their biographies with a dash of Zeitgeist. In some districts wherever you go, supermarket, kindergarten, park, if you happen to meet someone, the probability that he or she is an artist is very high. But how can so many artists survive in this city which is as glamorous as poor? Living in Berlin I came across a typical German reality which is the simple concept of “Zusammenarbeiten” / working together. Many young artists decide to join and to benefit from synergies, sharing this way risks, glory and frustrations in name of the motto: „together we are stronger“. They associate and create the so called “Produzentengalerien” (Producers Art Galleries).

They rent an exhibition space, share costs, develop concepts, organise group- or single shows, contact collectors, make press activity for the time duration of two maximal three years. Important is that every single artist has the right to say his/her mind in a very democratic way and they do not have to share the income with the gallery owner. Artists go thus through a test phase to get slowly fit to face the art market. During the planned two years much can happen: some artists have the chance to be discovered by important galleries, one artist of the group decides to become the gallery owner and the Produzentengalerie turns into a regular commercial gallery or it simply closes. Yes, this happens because of the economic crises from one side and because of totally human aspects such as communication problems or money issues from the other.

Following the example of the first Produzentengalerie in Hamburg, in the last five years many galleries in Berlin grew up. The first and historic ones are Liga and Diskus that do not exist any more, Rekord which became Martin Mertens Gallery. Interesting examples of good functioning galleries are now “Stedefreund” which is based in a backyard storage room in the Dorotheenstrasse in Mitte under the device “art networking”, or “General Public” in the Schönhauserallee. They define themselves as an independent project space run by a group of cultural workers and organise art and culture events.

Another interesting aspect of the German art scene are the “Kunst Verein” (“Art Associations”). They  date back 200 years when they aimed to extend art beyond the aristocratic class. They are more than 300 now, similar to foundations, they belong to sponsors, art mentors. These institutions have the purpose to promote and present young, experimental art offering artists the opportunity to start his/her career in the perfect environment under the attention of institutions, galleries, art lovers, collectors, that generally estimate very much the works proposed by Kunst Verein. They are present in big cities but also in little villages. I was told it frequently happens that the most sophisticated and cutting edge art trends are to be discovered in the smallest and forgotten village of the country. Isn´t that amazing?

Americans are always flabbergasted facing this intensive networking activity among artists in Germany. What about the Italian and international art scene? Could this model of good networking practise be adopted also in other countries?