Art Associations in Germany

Since their inception, art associations have had an interest in contemporary art, though “contemporary” here in no way always means that the art is thoroughly new and current in the sense of the modernist paradigm of progress.

Today, in the post-postmodern atmosphere, art associations have learned the lessons of modernism. Engaged art associations have taken up a kind of pioneering role; this is the spirit in which the programmatic statements of the Bremen Society for Contemporary Art (Gesellschaft für aktuelle Kunst / GAK), founded in 1980, may be seen as paradigmatic: “In changing group and solo exhibitions, [the GAK] presents international artistic positions before they have become established in the art world. It is a laboratory for the latest trends and tendencies in contemporary art, provides these with a platform and puts them forward for discussion. As a site for experiments, it ventures into fields of the unknown, uncertain and new; many works arise out of a direct confrontation with the on-the-spot situation”.

How far such a claim is in fact made good in all cases is another question; here there is at least clearly the will to explore uncharted terrain.

Seen historically, approaches that insist on innovation and deviation repeatedly collide with the understanding of art of art association members. Above all, the avant-gardist radicalization of modernism attacked the cornerstone of the middle class concept of art, which certainly led to conflicts. Schmitz, in his history of art associations, gives a striking example: in 1910 members of the Barmer Art Association accused its board and director of preferring the one-sidedly “hyper-modern” instead of bearing in mind “that they have been appointed primarily to serve … a large public”. Only thanks to the support of influential and financially powerful industrialists was the director able to remain in office.


To take a more recent example: the exhibition Happening and Fluxus at the Cologne Art Association in 1970, curated by Wolf Vostell and Harald Szemann, was closed for a short time because of vehement protests and led to quite a few members leaving the Association.

Even as late as 1996, Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen’s strongly contemporary program at the Hamburg Art Association caused a wave of resignations from the institution. But despite protests and resignations then and now, curators in art associations have largely retained their autonomy.

Although the public rejection of contemporary art has in principle lost its vehemence, this has not hindered middle class art from still cultivating canonical and prestige-oriented ideals of art. In this sense, it is symptomatic that the re-opening of the new expanded Bremen Kunsthalle, run by the Bremen Art Association, and the presented Edvard Munch exhibition, has led to an increase in the number of members from 7,000 to 8,000, a rise that runs quite opposite to the trend of the last two decades in which art associations have been steadily losing members. Against this background, art associations that independently of membership and visitor quotas support non-established art have gained an increasingly important role in maintaining artistic and social freedom.

Self-assurance

The generally observed decline in art association membership stems not least from the fact that the organizational form of the association has lost its appeal, and this not only since social networks shifted to the Internet. Something of yesteryear attaches to the institution; but, on the other hand, also a (limited) moment of democracy. The extension of these structures to grassroots democracy at the time of the student revolt in Berlin led to the dissolution of the German Society for the Fine Arts; in its place arose two new art associations, one of them the New Society for the Fine Arts (NGbK). Here members submit projects, which are then approved by the annual general meeting and realized by work groups.

In most art associations, temporarily appointed curatorial directors determine the program. For them, taking up such a position often means a step on the career ladder. Once museums, which previously focused on presenting their own collections, also began showing contemporary art in changing exhibitions, art associations have had a usually better equipped competition. Today art associations can no longer be run only on the basis of membership dues. They are dependent especially on public support, but also on sponsors, though the latter incline to prestigious institutions and media presence.

Art associations have responded to the changed situation with the permanent search for new opportunities and, as already mentioned, historical self-assurance. In 1993 Andrea Fraser already presented the Munich Art Association as “A Society of Taste”, and at the same place Maria Lind set up at short notice an art association archive. In a large-scale symposium, the Hall of Art in Lüneburg has examined Scene of the Crime: Art Association. At the Cologne Art Association, the series Der springende Punkt (The Bouncing Point) returns to the history of the institution. In the exhibition Die letzten ihrer Art (The Last of Their Kind) in Bonn, Cologne and Düsseldorf, each art association makes itself the theme.

Apart from such self-contemplation, which may well be read as a symptom of a latent crisis, art associations today distinguish themselves by their constant search for topical subjects, new art forms and formats, new opportunities of communication and networking. Despite its age, the art association is still alive today.

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