Visual Artists Between Cultural Demand and Economic Subsistence. Empirical Findings From Berlin.

Other costs

Here it was differentiated between annual expenses for material, job-related travel
costs, other job-related costs and advertising costs as well as expenses for a social
safety net. With around 2,400 euro, material costs take up the largest share of
expenditures. Additionally, travel expenses and other project-related costs also
account for a large portion.

1,300 euro is spent on the guarantee of a social safety net. More than half of the
surveyed are members of the Künstlersozialkasse (artists social insurance fund); a
fourth have some type of compulsory health insurance. The remaining fourth consists
of artists who are privately insured or not insured at all (2 per cent).

3.9 Sales Markets of Berlins Visual Artists

60 per cent of the visual artists market their artwork via their own studio and not
through galleries.

For the rest of the surveyed, gallery owners are commissioned to commercialize their
artwork. Just 10 per cent have fixed contracts with the galleries. More than half
indicated that sales have improved or at least stayed the same. For a third of the
surveyed artists exhibition opportunities have either improved or at least stayed the
same.

To that effect newly initiated art exhibitions give Berlin hope. With ART FORUM, the
“Berliner Liste”, the “Preview Berlin”, the “Berliner Kunstsalon”¹⁹ and the Berlinale in
the city, which in turn enhance the marketing possibilities and boost the value of the
label “Berlin”, new presence and sales opportunities are created that strongly assist
the competitive position of the art market in Berlin. Also Berlins CI exhibitions like
Design Mai and Bread & Butter can be completed by products of visual artists.

Ultimately, every—even unknown--artist profits from this attention.

Also Berlin profits from this diversity of the art scene. One example is that less than
one quarter of the artists were born in Berlin, over the half come from the “old” states
(Bundeslander), almost 15 per cent from the “new” states, the rest from other
countries.

In the regional distribution of presence and sales areas, Berlin is represented by
slightly more than the half, whereat alone 8 per cent thereof are supplied within a
particular district (see illustration 5).

¹⁹ ART FORUM, Berliner Liste, Preview Berlin and the Berliner Kunstsalon as an exhibition between
OFF-Culture to established culture have been held in Berlin at the same time in Autumn since 2005.

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