Epis. 341: Class Issues- artists and class with Berlin artist Norbert Witzgall

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style= "font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"> Berlin-based artist and co-curator of the exhibition ‘<a href= "https://berlinischegalerie.de/en/exhibition/class-issues/">Class Issues: Art Production in and out of Precarity</a>,’ <a href= "https://www.udk-berlin.de/en/person/norbert-witzgall/">Norbert Witzgall</a> talks about:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style= "font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"> The term/phenomenon of “Hope Labor,” which drives the economy of fine art and is based on the presumption that your hard work will pay off when you ‘make it;’ how Berlin has become prohibitively expensive for artists, which among other things has led to artists creating platforms such as the Ministry for Empathy to help artists in need; mental health in connection with artists’ labor conditions; the challenge for migrants in getting German grants, largely because of accessibility and knowledge; the intersectionality of exclusion, which is essentially how access includes less frequently acknowledged statuses such as class background and housing in addition to race and gender; art’s struggle to represent the society at large, using the example that there are no Germans of Turkish descent who are recognized in the art world; homeless artists, in particular a German collective, ‘Anonymous,’ included in ‘Class Issues;’ the poverty of some artists in old age; the transparency they used in ‘Class Issues,’ including production costs for the artworks, the family background of the artist, and what an artist’s pension is/will be; his at one time 11 simultaneous freelance jobs, which meant a big ‘class journey,’ or class switching, between gigs; his decision to re-train as a fine arts school teacher, which he started but then left at 19, coming back this time because he has the life experience to bring with him; and the hope that we can decrease the amount of ‘hope labor’ being put out by many, many artists.</span></