Post-reunification Germany produces cultural mecca

I am in a cavernous husk of a building in Berlin, watching the theater piece "Berlin Alexanderplatz," about the lowlife denizens of a city district mere blocks away.

This place, and this edgy, volatile dramatization of a famed German novel, bristle with historical resonance.

The show is the creation of Frank Castorf, the much-lauded head of Berlin's Volksbühne Theatre — and, until the 1990s, an East German artist.

And if the walls of this vast, derelict structure could talk? They'd speak of being built by East Berlin's Communist regime in the 1970s as a parliamentary hall, on a site where a palace once stood. And of being later turned into the Palast der Republik,

with restaurants, theaters and a bowling alley for the masses. Now, stripped bare, the structure is a vast, eerie cave of memories, slated for demolition. Yet typically in today's Berlin, artists like Castorf have put their own stamp on the symbolic site, before its next reincarnation.

Berlin, as one native puts it, "is forever in a state of becoming." And since 1990, this city of 3.4 million souls has become the new capital of a unified Germany, and the most exciting arts hub in Europe — a cultural mecca that amazes many an American visitor.

Recently I spent a week immersed in the Berlin arts scene, thanks to a study tour for U.S. journalists hosted by the Goethe Institute (a cultural and educational arm of the German government), and the National Arts Journalism Program.

The trip was a whirlwind of shows, museum visits, chats with Berlin arts critics, presenters and funders. And I left realizing that the gap between Germany's commitment to cultural expression, and our own U.S. cultural policy, is even wider than I'd imagined.

Even as the city-state of Berlin suffers from high unemployment, crippling fiscal deficits and other economic woes, Germany's investment in the arts makes our own look anemic, half-hearted, begrudging.

Cultural officials say local and national government annual support of the arts in Berlin alone is roughly 700 million euros ($843 million U.S.). To put it in perspective: Germany spends, over the entire country, $85 per capita on the arts; the U.S. spends $6 per capita.

Many bohemias

Certainly, various social and historical factors have converged to give Berlin a wealth of accessible arts amenities that puts even London and Paris to shame, as well as New York.

Germany's reunification after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 had the most impact. Suddenly, East Berlin's civic museums, theaters, symphony halls and opera houses (well-nurtured by the Communists as Cold War showcases) were added to those of West Berlin.

And young artists who'd "squatted" vacant buildings in poor and gritty areas of West Berlin in the 1980s branched out to occupy and revitalize such grim former East Berlin districts as the now-hip Mitte, and Prenzlauer Berg.

Today the city is buzzing with many bohemias. Small galleries, theaters, trendy cafes and nightclubs abound, easily reachable by bicycle or the excellent U-Bahn subway. And they add an upbeat, au courant energy to a city whose omnipresent history is both fascinating, and horrifying.

Even Berlin's current economic doldrums have, in a way, boosted the arts. The city is one of the cheapest cosmopolitan burgs in Western Europe. Rents are modest. And as one young art entrepreneur told me, some landlords will let a struggling storefront gallery stay free, just to fill the space.

Hotels and arts tickets are also a bargain, especially for Americans, and the array of classical and modern music, visual art, modern dance and German-language theater listed in arts calendar of Exberliner (an English-language monthly) is profuse.

Too much to take in

My own Berlin itinerary last month included seeing Castorf's stark, high-intensity "Berlin Alexanderplatz" (originally created for a festival in Zurich); a splendid, modernistic revival of Verdi's "La Traviata" (sung in German) at the Komische Opera; a dance concert choreographed by Japan's Akira Kasai at the House of World Culture (a youth-oriented complex that focuses on African, Asian and South American artists); and a Bertolt Brecht play at the Berliner Ensemble, the famous company that Brecht co-founded.

Among the experimental shows on tap were the ultra-hip HAU theater's "Call Cutta," an interactive piece about globalization, which connects patrons to operators at an outsourced call center in India.

And Germany's generous support of American art was reflected in the run of "Don't Trust Anyone Over 30," a zany puppet/film/punk-music satire of flower power hubris, created by two New Yorkers (Dan Graham and Tony Oursler) and a Canadian (Rodney Graham.)

I could have spent a month in Berlin culture-trolling, and not made a dent in the fringe arts scene — not to mention Berlin's tonier spread of three world-class opera houses, several symphony orchestras, eight civic theaters and 170 museums.

Not enough euros

So what could be wrong with this picture?

Nothing for a tourist, except making you green with envy. But the arts movers and shakers of Berlin are not sanguine about this largesse. They fear there simply aren't enough euros around to sustain all this government-sponsored art in a city that has little industry and a relatively small tax base.

Under protest, some large arts grants have been reduced.

Berlin's three ballet companies were melded into one, and new cost-sharing schemes are in process.

But cultural establishments should not be complacent, says Klaus Siebenhaar, a professor at the new Institute for Cultural and Media Management of Berlin's Free University.

Siebenhaar, who brings students to the U.S. to study our cultural system, believes German arts managers must boost ticket revenue, and seek more private funding, as arts groups in the U.K. had to when their public grants were cut.

But even if some illustrious companies are forced to raise ticket prices, forge corporate deals, or even close, Berlin will likely cling hard to its identity as a major art center — thanks to a deep societal belief in the public value of culture.

Manfred Fischer, head of the sponsorship and grants section of Berlin's government-sponsored Capital Cultural Fund, notes, "The support of culture in Germany is guaranteed at all levels, by law."

For better (and occasionally, for ill) Germans have long viewed the arts as a source of national identity, pride, even diplomacy. And now Berliners see it as an economic tool, as well: Fischer points out that 60 percent of all tourism to the city is culture-related.

To encourage that trend, the federal government under-

writes a string of annual festivals which, says Berliner Festspiele spokeswoman Jagoda Engelbrecht, feature top international artists and companies. And Germany has also poured money into a new performing and visual destination arts center in Potsdam, a historic city an hour from Berlin.

The complex is in a formerly militarized area on the banks of the Havel River, successively used by Prussian monarchs, the German Kaiser, Hitler's army and as a Cold War outpost of Russia's KGB (secret service).

Artists squatted on the site in the early 1990s, claiming it as a cool place for modern dance, art and late-night parties. Now it's being developed into something unusual for Germany: a mixed-use cultural and business hub, where Volkswagen has its design headquarters.

Free expression

In vivid contrast to Germany's former Communist and Fascist regimes, today there is no official government arts censorship — or even, in most cases, the kind of marketplace censorship imposed on American arts groups trying to stay in the good graces of corporate sponsors, individual donors or conservative subscribers.

The heads of the most lavishly subsidized arts institutions are appointed by state cultural ministers, and given five-year contracts to do, generally, as they please — no meddling from the state, or even boards of trustees.

Debates do sometimes flare over controversial fare, like the 2004 Komische Opera staging of Mozart's "The Abduction from the Seraglio," with its graphic images of sex, drug use and violence.

But with just a fraction of the cost coming from an angry corporate donor (automaker DaimlerChrysler), opera director Andreas Homoki stood firm. "The German theater system is an expression of a free society," he told the press, "in which uncomfortable art occupies a necessary place."

How Berlin will continue to pay for that luxury is a gnawing source of worry.

But at least in the present, Berlin's arts largesse is not just driven by deluxe institutions, impressive as they are, but also by grassroots arts efforts and a youthful, freewheeling spirit.

And that's a good thing, says Engelbrecht. "Right now we're a poor city," she notes. "But we're rich in ideas and creativity."

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com