2019,

TROPEZ

2019,

2017

Sommerbad Humboldthain

Wiesenstraße

1

Berlin

13357

tropeztropez.de

AMOUR, 2018, Foto: Ink Agop

New Noveta, Mid Sparagmos, Performance, 2018, Foto: Ink Agop

Ohne die Kultur könnten der Tourismus, die Gastronomie, das Hotelwesen und viele andere Branchen in dieser Stadt dichtmachen, was während der Pandemie teilweise ans Licht gekommen ist. Mit der „City Tax“ ist ein Schritt in die richtige Richtung getan worden, jedoch ist der Umfang bei Weitem nicht ausreichend.The commercialization of the contemporary art scene in the last decade has created alienation and dissociation from the audience. The social filters at the established exhibition spaces, the sterilization of methods of presentation, and over-professionalism have created an image and perception of inaccessibility. In that respect, project spaces and art initiatives that resist these dynamics and strive for keeping direct social contact maintain the political potential of artistic practice. We don’t promote the conventional star system in selecting the artists we are collaborating with; we don’t pursue a hierarchical method by employing an omnipotent curator; we value the critical content and formal experimentalism of the artworks rather than the conditions of their presentation, and we don’t sell any artworks in our space; we don’t invest our energy in commercial speculation. We put an emphasis on the collective and on the social. We keep contact with our immediate neighborhood (in Neukölln), and we prioritize the knowledge about and the cultural accumulation of a particular geography. Hence, we engage in a counter-position against the dominant dynamics that have shaped the field of the contemporary art scene in the last decade. The pandemic condition has also been a drastic element that forced actors in the field to reconsider methods of presentation and social contact.I wish that politicians would realize how important funding structures are and how much these can shape an art scene – shape a city.