
Covering the visual arts in a city like Berlin has its undoubted perks: travelling all around the city, a sense of purpose, press-conference croissants. But there’s also an almighty drawback and that’s the constant, unrelenting drip of events.
Every day, messages and emails fizz into my inbox with reminders to attend openings, performances and other happenings; occasionally embossed invitations are pushed aggressively through my letterbox. All of them remind me not to miss out on this and that, and to be sure to pop into such and such’s concert. And, it must be said, they all sound wonderful – each one offers a welcome opportunity to get out of the house and potentially see something extraordinary.
To cover everything that is going on would take 10 journalists or perhaps one kind of journalistic superbeing.
That is, until the day itself arrives, when the thought of catching a bus, then a train and then a 17-minute walk to a repurposed factory on the outskirts of Lichtenberg for a performance exploring the physical manifestation of power structures tied to the building’s architectural history (Berlin, is it time to move on?) is overshadowed by the far more appealing prospect of staying home.
I live in perpetual disappointment at my own lethargy, guilt at my un-art-editor-like domesticity. How can I justify staying in when there’s a premiere to attend in Reinickendorf? Sometimes I find myself hovering by the front door, jacket half on, shoes untied, checking Google Maps one final time to see if I really have it in me to take on the schlep across the city to go to a new project space’s opening.
Don’t get me wrong, I visit a lot. But the sheer volume of events in Berlin is astounding. To cover everything that is going on would take 10 journalists or perhaps one kind of journalistic superbeing: a FOMO-driven mega critic, capable of sprinting from venue to venue, with a map of art spaces tattooed on the back of their hand and a brain implant supplying perfect vernissage small talk.
“Where d’you get the lukewarm Becks? No, I don’t think your six-year-old could’ve done this.” The point is that the torrent of cultural activity in Berlin is staggering. The richness of activities available to someone on a Friday night is incredible. And it is precisely this vibrant, cacophonous deluge of activities that makes Berlin so exceptional.
That is why these recently announced budgetary changes are such a problem. Right now, the culture budget from the Berlin Senate is a measly 2.1% of the city’s total budget, and the plans to cut it by as much as 12% (€130 million), disproportionately impact the independent art and culture scene – especially the spaces and initiatives that champion international, diverse programming.
For instance, Kultur Räume Berlin risks losing artist workspaces, Savvy Contemporary may see its budget (shared with two other spaces) severely reduced, and even festivals like Creamcake’s 3hd are under threat.
The Berlin Is Culture alliance (#BerlinIstKultur) has organised a number of protests to demonstrate against the cuts, but the speed of their introduction means that by the start of 2025 most would have been implemented already. Senator for Culture Joe Chialo, who has consistently described culture as Berlin’s “heavy industry”, has mumbled a few words about the cuts needing to be “distributed fairly”. But he knows exactly what’s at stake. The fate of the capital’s independent cultural landscape hangs in the balance.
It’s a cruel irony that Berlin – a city celebrated for its creativity and wild experimentation – is draining its own lifeblood, committing a kind of cultural hara-kiri. Beyond the inevitable impact on tourism and the steady influx of artists, curators and performers drawn to the city’s cultural abundance, these cuts threaten more than just institutions, they also endanger all the inexplicable weird stuff that Berlin does so well. Without its full range of vital art spaces the city faces a duller future. And for all the strain it puts on harried journalists, there can be nothing worse than Gmail going silent.