In his doctoral dissertation, he compares the cultural policy of Avtostadt and Gelsenkirhen, the “city of fire”, during the so -called economic miracle.
Both cities want to free themselves: from their past as the location of the national industry of socialist weapons, from the traditional cities of their environment, ultimately also from the influence of industry. The means of choice are the cultural political projects of the lighthouse. While in 1959, document II “Install abstract contemporary art as German and international trend,” Kester said, the award “Young City sees young art,” was first awarded in Wolfsburg in 1958.
At the same time, the municipal stages in Gelsenkirchen, today’s musical theater in this area. “First of all, the employee must come to this place in order to be culturally brought up with theatrical art,” says Kstster.
They say that the boss VW Heinrich Nordhoff adopted the right to the veto in cultural decisions
Wolfsburg also has such a “folk education”. “The working population has always been considered, should be raised to abstract contemporary art,” says Kstster. But this descending structure did not work. Thus, Gelsenkirchen tried to create classical collections of art, “only you can see that only the class of citizens with a subtle education consumes this art.”
In the early 1960s, Wolfsburg wants to buy plastic from Henry Moore for 60,000 D-sweepers. “There were waves of protest, there were letters in the editor Wolfsburger AllGemeine ZeitungWho said that this money for a work of art, which they do not understand at all, otherwise should enter into a cultural education. “
Kester talks about “exemption efforts that did not work internally and outside.” Volkswagen remains power in the city. V.V. Patriarch Henry Nordhoff organizes several exhibitions supervised in accordance with his taste in the 1950s and 60s. “He showed that he liked it,” namely the classics.
At the same time, he opposed his efforts to create Wolfsburg as a city of abstract contemporary art. In addition, he had a real veto law in cultural solutions. “The municipal decision – participants – which was noted in private notes – were partially supplied.”
Structural changes in the change in the cultural landscape
Six million D-processes of the cultural center, currently Alvar-Aalto-Kulturhaus, would not be possible without two million provided by VW. At the opening of 1962, they report the media throughout the country. “Many of these contributions are very friendly, but it always speaks of the Vilksvagen city, and not from Wolfsburg.”
In Gelsenkirchen, on the other hand, the rules of structural changes: a textile crisis, a mining crisis, a steel crisis – fewer jobs, less income from trade, less culture. “Then this vacuum is filled with bourgeois initiatives, such as kunstinin,” says Kstster. “It should also be noted that intermunicipal cooperation is much more on the focus.”
Civil initiatives instead of corporate decisions
The modern city theater collaborates with Bochum and Dortmund. In Gelsenkirchen, the cultural landscape is still strongly formed by bourgeois and private initiatives, the historian says, but Volkswagen just remains the power in Wolfsburg. ”
In the early 1970s, the group decided mass consolidation measures. “This reduces the income from trade from almost 44 million D-locks in 1970 to 16.6 million in 1971.” In 1973, “Young Art” “Young Art” became “young art” with the participation of the cities of Bochum, Revlinghausen, Baden-Baden, Mannham and Stuttgart. In 1994, the Art Museum was opened by the Volkswagen Art Foundation.
Autostadt entertainment park is being commissioned six years later. At the initiative of the city of Wolfsburg, the Feno Science Museum, which will subsequently be transferred to the fund opened in 2005, is financially supported by VW. “I would say that the current crisis will not necessarily affect the cultural zone of the city immediately,” Kstster says. “The system -system has become a separate cultural player – in close cooperation with Volkswagen – but this is a much more diversified and crisis festival.”
