The Art Angle Podcast: Why Germany’s COVID-19 Relief Plan Is the Envy of the Art World

Welcome to the Art Angle, a podcast from Artnet News that
delves into the places where the art world meets the real world,
bringing each week’s biggest story down to earth. Join host Andrew
Goldstein every week for an in-depth look at what matters most in
museums, the art market, and much more with input from our own
writers and editors as well as artists, curators, and other top
experts in the field.

Although the coronavirus pandemic is first and foremost a
public-health emergency, it rapidly proved to be a deep financial
emergency, too. With businesses and cultural institutions around
the world forced to shutter en masse in the face of
social-distancing regulations, questions loom large about how the
global economy and the workforce will endure a prolonged period in
which all but “essential” laborers must work from home—or not at
all. This proposition is especially worrisome in the art industry,
where so many artists and small businesses weather precarious
conditions even in the best of times, making them especially
vulnerable to financial ruin in our current extraordinary
moment.

Yet different Western nations are responding to the cultural
crisis in very different ways. The United States hammered out
a roughly $2.2 trillion rescue package that contained
only $300 million specifically earmarked for arts and media causes,
and conservative politicians attacked even this paltry
amount as wasteful spending. In contrast, Germany announced a
federal aid package featuring a whopping €50 billion ($54 billion)
to be distributed to freelancers and small businesses,
including those in the arts, while the country’s culture minister
praised artists as “not only indispensable, but also vital,
especially now.” Even more assistance came from the city-state of
Berlin, which began funneling €5,000 payments to
individual freelancers almost instantly with the promise that
“there will be enough for everyone.”

On this week’s episode, Artnet News’s European editor Kate Brown
calls in from her home in Berlin to discuss all sides of Germany’s
stunning cultural rescue plan. How did a country known for its
sometimes-daunting bureaucracy manage to assemble such a generous
bailout in such short order? What kind of political climate enabled
it? And what does the package mean for the future of the arts in
Berlin and Germany at large once the crisis finally ends?

Listen above and subscribe to the Art Angle on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, or wherever you get your podcasts. (Or
catch up on past
episodes here on Artnet News.)

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Relief Plan Is the Envy of the Art World appeared first on
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