Culture financing – just no elevator team

In the beginning there were twelve empty shops in the Sonnenberg district of Chemnitz, which were opened for contemporary art for a weekend. The encouragement was great, says Lars Neuenfeld, one of the organizers: “That also had a certain curiosity factor.” The event was given the name “inspections”. The first edition followed in 2003: First on Brühl, a pedestrian zone on the edge of the city center, in changing locations since 2010: like in a department store, an allotment garden, in the Kulturpalast of Wismuth, in the Kaßberg prison. Chemnitz is a city from which many have moved away since 1990. “There are enough empty buildings that we can use,” says Neuenfeld. The “inspections”, which always lasted a weekend, became more and more popular and counted up to 8000 visitors.

This summer, the “inspections” turn the big bike. Not a weekend, but for four weeks the north heating plant will be opened from mid -July. It has been unused since the local energy supplier in 2024 carried out the early coal phase -out. Several halls are occupied by artists such as Hito Steyerl and Olaf Nicolai, who already caused a sensation at the Venice Biennale and are now dealing with topics such as climate change and environmental destruction in Chemnitz. Neuenfeld is particularly excited about a sound installation in a cooling tower: “The acoustics are phenomenal.” He expects art lovers from all over Europe, as well as technology -loving and former power plant: » That too makes the “inspection”. “

The festival is one of the highlights in one year that is a feast for Chemnitz: for twelve months you are in Europe. Some protrude from the long list of events and projects, such as the “Purple Path”, which is opened this weekend and combines the city in a kind of open-air gallery with 38 municipalities in the surrounding area. Other are an Edward Munch show in the urban art collections and the “inspections”. Dagmar Ruschinsky is also looking forward to the world premiere of the opera »Rummelplatz« after a book by Werner Bräuning, which is to be performed in various places in the city: »It will be great.«

Ruscheinsky was elected city mayor of the city at the end of 2021. A year earlier, Chemnitz had been awarded the contract as a cultural capital. “That was a reason to apply,” she says. The title is a unique opportunity for the department head, but above all for the city, which is often underestimated, although there is a “much greater cultural diversity than in comparable cities,” says Neuenfeld. Ruscheinsky lists: a five-division theater including A-orchestra, the urban art collections, the factory villa Esche, designed by the Bauhaus architects Henry van de Velde, the recently opened museum in the birthplace of the expressionist painter Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, the Saxon industrial and the archaeology museum. Not to forget around 100 clubs, museums and initiatives in free sponsorship, from Club Atomino to the German Spielmuseum to the Chemnitz film workshop and the children’s film festival »Schlingel«. There are diverse and “top -class” culture in the city, says Ruscheinsky: “Nice that others now take a look at others.”

So far, the large electricity of cultural tourists in the cityscape has not yet been seen. In cafés, however, he increasingly meets guests who are deepened into the capital manual, says Neuenfeld: “In spring it really starts.” The organizers expect two million visitors. The international interest is huge, says Ruscheinsky. There have been thousands of press reports since the opening festival in January, some of which were talking about Chemnitz as the “new New York”, reports the mayor and notes, many congresses will also take place in the city in 2025. “If the year is up, we are no longer overlooked.”

Interest also draws attention to a development that takes place in the shadow of the capital hype and is perceived in the city’s cultural scene as threatening. It is about cuts in cultural financing, which arouse serious concerns about “loss of substance”, especially with free providers. Under this motto, signatures were collected and protests were organized.

According to the mayor, the city currently spends 78 million euros on culture annually. In a cultural strategy decided in 2018, it was said that a few years earlier it was necessary to “fight or defend appropriate means”; In the meantime, however, there is a “solid financing” that allows “to break down into new rooms and opportunities”. According to a council decision, at least five percent of the cultural budget go to the free scene. Between 2018 and 2023, the corresponding sum rose from 2.3 to 4.6 million euros. Of these, 97 projects and events were recently funded.

Many hoped that the title of the Capital of Culture hoped for an additional exhaust rain. In fact, a lot of money flows into the renowned project. The city loosens 35 million, and 25 million each come from the federal government and the Free State of Saxony. The EU’s grant is more symbolic, but further funding pots and sponsorship money ensured that a total of 116 million euros are available, says Ruscheinsky. But she admits: “This is a special situation.” What you can still afford in the future, “we have to see”.

The municipal culture has come under pressure nationwide. In Berlin, cultural senator Joe Chialo (CDU) shocked the public with the plan to shorten ten percent of his budget. In Dresden, renowned institutions such as the Festspielhaus Hellerau and the German Hygiene Museum warned in a petition that planned cuts would “endanger” the call of the cultural city. The German Culture Council expressed “great concern” about cultural financing in an appeal to the federal government, the states and municipalities and warned of “considerable damage in the cultural landscape”.

The causes are the same everywhere in the municipalities: income decreases and new obligations that are transmitted by the federal and state governments cost a lot of money that is not reimbursed. In Saxony’s municipalities, social expenditure recently increased by twelve, which is eight percent for the staff. In search of savings options, the view often falls on the culture, which formally is a “voluntary” task. Ruscheinsky says conjuring, culture belongs to the nature of cities “and is essential for education and cohesion of the city society. But she also warns: better the financial situation is not better, one faces “existential threats”.

The consequences can already be viewed in Chemnitz. From 2026, there will be another closing day per week in the art collections, which will cause a sensation in 2025 with the large Munch show. For the special exhibition, part of the country’s cultural area grants is required, which have so far been on the freelance scene. Their funding is shrinking from 4.6 to 3.9 million euros.

This has fatal consequences for long -established carriers such as Kraftwerk eV. The association has been running a cultural house in the best sense in the former Pionierhaus and a neighboring manufacturer villa, in which dance tea for seniors are as well as chess courses for children, exhibitions and concerts. There is urban funding for this, but it was always scarce. “The water has been upper edge for years,” says Managing Director Holm Krieger. Now the amount is reduced again. Formally, it is ten percent, but at the same time heating and other additional costs have increased by 15 percent. In fact, the budget shrinks by a quarter. “That is absolutely demotivating.”

The European title would have hoped for a lot, says Krieger, who was temporarily sitting on the capital program advisory board: “Finally enough money, finally work as we always wanted.” But instead of lust there is frustration. The money is scarce than ever, at the same time the association shrank from renting because new locations such as the garage campus were opened up with the cultural capital. In addition, your own program is in the shadow of the many events of the Capital of Culture, which also “absorbs” a lot of volunteering. Warrior looks sobered. The capital year, he says, is “a stress test for the existing cultural scene”.

Mathias Lindner also warns that in the Chemnitz culture, “even small cuts also have incredible effects”. He heads the new Saxon gallery. Many of their six exhibitions annually enable regional artists. The operator is the new Chemnitz Kunsthütte association, which revived the tradition of a bourgeois cultural institution of the 19th century in 1990. In 2003 he moved into the “Tietz” cultural department store as a tenant. The urban funding he receives flows almost completely into rent and personnel costs for one and a half positions. He considers the cultural capital to be an opportunity; The gallery participates with a project in which street artists from Serbia, France and Australia create provocative works of art in public space that would be illegal under other circumstances. However, Lindner criticizes that on the one hand, the capital of the Culture such as the “Purple Path” can draw on the full and the Munch show should attract a lot of international audience, but despite all the savings efforts, his club has no money for advertising, catalogs or smaller projects: “The conditions are no longer correct.”

Lars Neuenfeld from the “Court” festival is also afraid of an unsightly awakening in the coming year. The Capital of Culture, he says, had awakened expectations for everyone involved. “We followed the request to think more European and become more professional,” he says. The Chemnitz culture, which previously played “ambitious regional league”, has arrived in the “Europa League” – and must now fear that what is referred to as a “elevator team” in football: short height, faster descent. That shouldn’t happen, says Neuenfeld. “We are not allowed to land again in 2026 where we were a few years ago. The expectation is that the cultural capital will continue at a similarly high level. “