Private Cultural Promotion in the Federal Republic of Germany [antikvár]

1. Introduction Over the past few years, private cultural promotion has become a major topic of interest in cultural policy in the Federal Republic of Germany, though not without a certain delay if we compare the situation here to that in other European countries. This has been a result not only of the many reports in the press, of parliamentary debates, of major surveys (including the research undertaken by the Centre for Cultural Research for the book 'Renaissance der Mäzene?' (Renaissance of the Patrons?), Cologne 1989, on which the present publication is partly based), but also of an increased exchange of experience both at the national and international level. The first may serve as an example. The following conferences were held in the period from spring 1987 to spring 1988 alone (and this is but a partial listing!): - "Cultural promotion between austerity in public funding, subsidies in the millions and private sponsorship", Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Gummersbach - "Sponsors and the private promotion of art". Professional Association of Visual Artists and University of the Arts, Berlin - "Culture between government and business", Bertelsmann Foundation, Gütersloh - "Sponsoring of music in the past and present". Symposium of the 'Música', Hamburg - "Sports and culture as vehicles for marketing?". University of Augsburg/Association for the Promotion of Marketing - "Business culture and tribal culture". Design Council and the Industrial Culture Initiative, Frankfiirt - "Marketing with museums". Museums of the City of Cologne - "Cultural promotion and cultural sponsoring - new fields of activity for communications work", German Communications Association and the European Business School The field of arts promotion is obviously in a period of take-off, or perhaps of upheaval, though we must be cautious about drawing premature conclusions as to the actual financial significance of such involvement.