"WITHOUT ART AND CULTURE IT BECOMES QUIET"
YouTube Premiere "From Kreisky's living room"
ROBERT MISIK IN CONVERSATION WITH VERONICA KAUP-HASLER
„WITHOUT ART AND CULTURE IT BECOMES QUIET“
Tasks of cultural policy
When she took office, she described herself as a „strange creature“ in politics - Vienna's City Councillor for Culture Veronica Kaup-Hasler is not a member of the SPÖ, for example, and hardly anyone would have had her on their shortlist as a candidate for Michael Ludwig's government team. She represents civil society and the art world in city politics, is „non-partisan“ but not „impartial“. As a cultural politician, she is an „enabler“ who must create and guarantee artists„ freedom, but also a social politician in two senses: artists should be able to work with a certain degree of security, but access to “culture for all" is also a central, historical social democratic objective.
Progressive cultural policy has always been associated with the avant-gardes, which developed new styles and radical forms and formal languages and raced against conformist high culture and shallow commercial culture. Today, the path from counterculture to the big stages is a short one. But what does radical art mean today? Has it lost its opponent? Has it lost its sting?
Cultural policy must enable, but also define its own goals and make bold decisions. What are the socio-political tasks of cultural policy? Can it fuel the controversy and debate that democracy needs like the air it breathes? How clearly and partisan must it articulate itself in order to avoid falling into the trap of arbitrariness? And what are the major flagship projects that the City Councillor for Culture has set herself? Veronika Kaup-Hasler talks about all this and much more with Kreisky Forum curator Robert Misik in Bruno Kreisky's living room.
Veronica Kaup-Hasler was born in 1968 in Dresden in the former GDR. The family fled to Vienna in 1970. Among other things, she was dramaturge at the Wiener Festwochen, director of the festival Theaterformen (2001-2004) and artistic director of steirischer herbst (2006-2017). In May 2018, Mayor Michael Ludwig Kaup appointed Hasler to his team as Andreas Mailath-Pokorny's successor. Since then, she has been Vienna City Councillor for Culture and Science.
Veronica Kaup-Hasler, Executive City Councillor for Culture and Science
Moderation Robert Misik, Author and journalist