Thumbs up for efficiency!
An evaluation of what is going on in the city’s cultural life does not entirely depend on an external viewpoint, it can also be initiated from inside. All that is needed is a sober assessment of the ratio between investment and returns with regard to daily work. This will appear less intimidating given the premise that such an assessment need not aid and abet the crude subordination of culture to economic calculations. This is quite rightly anathema to artists because economic considerations usually thrive at the expense of content. Working on the Culture Capital project has however taught us and many other people involved in it that efficiency in the culture scene is a category that needs to be taken seriously. A case in point are situations where a professionalisation of the working conditions and means of production is a prerequisite for concentration on cultural and artistic core tasks. Or where unnecessary frills and vacuous discussions never deliver the cooperation they seem to promise. An example for such a placebo situation is the Stadtkulturbeirat, whose non-committal activities are a constant reminder what a time-consuming construction this body is. Here, as elsewhere, a courageous, self-critical cut and a new departure is called for.back