BENGALURU : Being the head of the Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Bangalore, the official cultural institute of Germany, I would like to address the role of public support for culture and the arts. Karnataka, and with it Bangalore, have great traditions in the fields of music, dance and other artistic disciplines. Kannada rightfully gets public support in every form of literature, poetry, etc. as a local language trying to withstand the overpowering presence of languages like Hindi and English. This traditional cultural sphere gets strong financial, infrastructural and moral support from politics and public administration. In Bangalore, such support barely exists for non-traditional, contemporary arts, which today survive almost solely because of private initiatives, groups and individuals.
However, coming from Germany, where we not only have a long track record of public support for our strong artistic traditions in music, theatre, dance, literature, etc., I would like to underline how important financial and infrastructural support is for contemporary and even avant-garde expressions in the arts. In Germany, we are convinced that a vibrant and dynamic democratic society needs impulses from artists who are looking into a different kind of future and who question current societal, political or economic realities.
Contemporary art often gives impulses that make us think about what is going wrong and what is going right in the current world, and additionally it is a very good school to experience, tolerate and discuss different views and opinions, an attitude vital to a democracy. I believe that this is not only important for the German or European societies. I am sure Bangalore and Karnataka would also benefit a lot from it.
SOLUTION: What could be a way to arrive at this more vibrant and future-oriented cultural sphere? I am convinced that it would have to start with politicians and administration realising the importance of contemporary art. Without true interest and the conviction that contemporary art can play a key role in keeping a democracy vital, alive and ready to discuss how you want your society to look like in the future, this whole endeavour will not work.
A second thing is that you need financial, infrastructural and administrative means that actually organise this kind of support. You need criteria that help you to decide what to fund and what not. And once initiated by open-minded and positive-thinking people, this will unfold as a positive and dynamic process that the whole society can benefit from.
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