Institutions

Is it really the task of the Akademie der Künste (Academy of the Arts) to preserve memories of great artists? A talk with the artistic programme coordinator Johannes Odenthal.

In the era of European Baroque, when all the new sciences and old arts were placed in the service of the king, an academy was not regarded as a school. Through its elites it was supposed to represent the significance of the arts and sciences. Nowadays the two academies are separated. The sciences are represented by eight local academies, while the Akademie der Künste is one single national institution with its headquarters in Berlin. It comprises a maximum of 500 members from the spheres of the fine arts, architecture, music, literature, the performing arts, film and media art. It revolves around, on the one hand, the comprehensive archive in which the legacies of former members are also preserved. On the other hand, there is also an independent programme of events. The Akademie has always organised exhibitions, also issued various publications. As early as 1966, under its present-day Vice-President Nele Hertling, it had invited representatives of contemporary dance from all over the world. But for this there was never a central - let alone an interdisciplinary - artistic programme coordinator in charge. Until 2006.

Cultural heritage

For five years Johannes Odenthal has been coordinating the art activities of the Akademie, and his contract has been prolonged for a further five years. Odenthal, an art historian, founded the journal tanz aktuell, now published under the name tanz. Then, for ten years, he was responsible for the intercultural dialogue at the “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” in Berlin. He brings a certain cosmopolitan flair to the primrily national context in which the Akademie der Künste now operates. For the “core competence of the Akademie is the archive. It is a fantastic testament to our cultural heritage in Germany,” says Johannes Odenthal. Its statute also stipulates that the task of the academy is to preserve the cultural heritage and to support the government in affairs of art and culture. Hence “the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (Federal Cultural Foundation) also concentrates on passing on history and cultural education.”

Is this not conservative?

“The past“, says Johannes Odenthal, “was the avant-garde of the 20th century. Until the turn of the century each festival still presented at least three new choreographers. They surpassed one another in innovations.” These times are over. From September 2011 until September 2012 the Akademie der Künste is showing a retrospective of the American avant-gardist John Cage and his pioneering influences on dance, music and performance. And the farewell tour of the Merce Cunningham Company, due to disband at the turn of 2011/2012, also included performances at the Academy. These events are intended to breathe life into the past. An offer targeted at younger people who were never able to experience the late icons Cunningham and Cage.

The avant-garde is dead.

With the passing away of these two great artists “something else was shattered,” says Odenthal, and he poses the question: “Don’t we trust the present any more? Everywhere people are withdrawing to the last century in order to secure their own modernity.” The point is that “the past is increasing,” in the many retro-waves, and due to the infinite storage capacity of digital culture. “As a result the present is diminishing, there are ever more reconstructions. This fetish of cultural memory is, I believe, also a sign of traumatisation: that families are disintegrating, and the supremacy of European thought is coming to an end. Avant-garde has long since been happening elsewhere and in other contexts, in Brazil, North Africa, India and China, where our choreographers really like to travel in order to recharge themselves with an energy that no longer exists in Europe. The same applies to the intellectuals. The experts say nothing, or no-one listens to them.

Turmoil or happiness?

A drastic analysis - to which Johannes Odenthal adds the following interpretation: art no longer provokes Europeans but, as in the case of the Danish caricatures, other societies that find themselves in a state of upheaval. “The turmoil caused by art can only emerge in a society that is changing, such as 1968, whereas in Europe these days everything is geared to a longing for simple happiness. Harmony, health and reconciliation with the past are on the agenda.” Of course, in this situation art produces “no energy. This is in stark contradiction to the Academy President Klaus Staek who is still dissatisfied and wants to fight radically.” But who will follow him? Everywhere they are merely securing the structures, also at the Academy of the Arts, also at the universities and city theatres “instead of being concerned with the artist’s cultural effect on society”. Is this the theme of the Academy in future? Yes, believes Johannes Odenthal, “when the crisis in Europe intensifies.”