(2006b), companies from the advertising and music industries with settlement
around the Kurfürstendamm were interviewed8. Most companies alleged that they
chose and have stayed at this location because of a certain prestige and status notion
that goes along with this renowned and simultaneously expensive location.
3.3 Empirical findings
In a regional-national comparisation, the growth of companies and employment
speak for an increasing concentration of visual artists in Berlin and underline the
importance of Berlin as a metropolis of art and culture.
An investigation of the economic and social circumstances of visual artists in Berlin
on this scale has not been carried out up to now. The following section should help to
close this gap and offer suggestions, in what way this profession and its contribution
to the achievement of welfare as well as the conservation and maintenance of cultural
capital within a knowledge-intensive urban economy is to be classified (Mundelius
2006a).
Information, which was collected within the framework of a written company survey
and expert interviews by DIW Berlin in Berlin in the spring of 2006, constitutes the
database.
For this investigation, over 5,400 professionally working visual artists in Berlin were
surveyed in written form. The response rate was approximately 12 per cent. The share
of organized freelance visual artists, who are members of Berlin’s Federal Association
of Artists of the Fine Arts, lays at one-third. For a nationwide comparison, Berlin has
a percentage rate of approximately 18 per cent.
Furthermore, findings were made regarding the economic and social circumstances
of visual artists by way of interviews with Berlin’s visual artists and a further
reference study. In this connection, it was a matter of an isochronal written survey of
aspirants for financial support in catalogues and projects as well as work stipends
from the Berlin Senate Administration Department (Senatsverwaltung) for science,
research and culture, including 110 participants (response rate approx. 30 per cent).
3.4 Berlin’s development in comparison to Germany’s average
Although a statistical survey of this profession is difficult, using benchmark data
Berlin’s development is to be contrasted with nationwide development, with the aid
of a generated time series. The number of those liable to tax on sales in Berlin rose to
8 These interviews were conducted between August 2004 and June 2005.