Precarity

"What do you live off?" 20 artists are asked, and then they tell the sometimes most bizarre stories about their job, money and their strategies for surviving life as an artist in Germany when things are not going so well for them. However, even if they are struggling around on the breadline, they prefer to be independent than to let themselves be told what to do by someone else. Freedom is the elixir of the creative.

"What I would really like to do is to be able to live off my painting. At the moment, though, I can't even pay for a studio," the Braunschweig artist Johanna Laute says. She paints in her small, 15-square-metre flat. Wolfgang Herrndorf, a writer from Berlin, has dreams as well: he wants to travel. "My last holiday was 15 years ago." And finally Wenzel Storch, a film director of strange underground productions, with visions of monumental films, has been looking for "the necessary cash" in Hildesheim for the last ten years. As it hasn't turned up, he's considering terminating his health insurance and putting the money into projects.

That the metier of an artist is hard is no secret. Most of the roughly 170.000 freelance artists in Germany earn an average of 10,800 euros per year; those just starting up, only 7,750 euros, according to the current statistics of the KSK (social insurance fund for artists). Nevertheless hardly anybody in the "scene" talks about money, their job and life; that would be bad for their image.

Surviving in precarious times

In their book Wovon lebst du eigentlich? Vom Überleben in prekären Zeiten (i. e. What do you live off? Surviving in precarious times) the authors Jörn Morisse and Rasmus Engler break this taboo. In 20 interviews, artists answer their questions, among them prominent names such as Harry Rowohlt (translator), Leonore Mau (photographer) or Kathrin Passig (author and Bachmann prizewinner). Predominantly, though, Morisse and Engler give artists outside the mainstream a chance to voice their opinions, like Almut Klotz (musician, writer), Jonas Burgert (painter) or even Storch, the filmmaker, an original character and connoisseur of the art of living.

It could have been a boring book about topics like basic income and the vortex of social descent; the fact that it has turned out to be a wonderful book is because the authors are so well informed about and familiar with the material. Engler and Morisse themselves tread the narrow ridge of a regular livelihood. They perform a great many jobs: editor, author, drummer or guitarist.

Along with that, their interview partners are extremely candid about money, the lack of it, and the complex strategies they have for surviving in times when things are not going so well. In a very personal way, with a lot of black humour and many anecdotes, they reveal what their living and working conditions are like and, at the same time, offer an insight into the day-to-day life of German artists.

A financial balancing act

"One has to write the truth," the Berlin writer Bernd Cailloux recommends with a wink of the eye and then stresses how long he kept his head above water through additional earnings – second and third jobs. He and others earned extra income as taxi-drivers, waiters, models, small-scale entrepreneurs or assistants at cheese counters.

One can learn a lot from Cailloux and his colleagues about the relationship between being an artist and material security. The importance of state welfare and provisions for the future, insurance and bank accounts play a marginal role. As their existence is equivalent to a financial balancing act, many artists are well practised in frugality and in taking on responsibility for themselves. In a lapidary way the musician Almut Klotz says that she hasn't had enough money at all for years but that she nevertheless got on "quite well". "I just have fewer expectations," she says. Or she borrows money from her son until it's time for the next GEMA (i. e. performing rights society) licence payout. However applying for Hartz IV (i. e. means-tested unemployment benefit) or "expecting the state to do this or that like Daddy – that's what I reject".

Personal freedom is an elixir

Of course there are some that "earn more than others" like the director of the film Verschwende deine Jugend, (i. e. Waste your youth) Benjamin Quabeck. With a lot of hard work and even more luck, Quabeck fought himself through the German Federal Film Board (FFA) and those of the federal states. That brought him work, security and "room to manoeuvre" so that he could live quite well when nothing was coming in. That there should be similar wide-ranging instruments of promotion for the other arts is the general opinion.

However, almost all those interviewed maintained that something else was much more important: however precarious the situation is and however much one exploits oneself, anyone who can produce his album, painting or book in a free and independent way, remaining his or her own boss, feels much happier. Personal freedom is the elixir of the creative. "It's odd. Money is not important to me at all; I prefer to have the freedom to achieve my goals. Of course, with too little money one meets one's limitations, but I prefer to have less money than a full-time job that prevents me from doing my real work," Johanna Laute admits.

Morisse, Jörn; Engler, Rasmus: Wovon lebst du eigentlich? Vom Überleben in prekären Zeiten, Piper, Munich, October 2007, 256 pages € 8.00, ISBN: 9783492250658