Martin Damus: Autonomy of art and state art prizes
This booklet was one product of the research project “Funktionen der Bildenden Kunst im Spätkapitalismus” commissioned by the nGbK whose findings were published as a paperback in 1973. Martin Damus was interested in particular in the parallel emergence of autonomous avant-garde art on the one hand and, on the other, “functional public art that is not taken seriously as art.” Damus studied the problem of the “autonomy” of art in bourgeois society and examined that society’s interest in “autonomous” art and its impact on state art funding. For this study, he wrote to education ministries and cultural offices, asking them to respond to a questionnaire concerning prize money, selection criteria, and jury composition for current art prizes. Damus, born 1936, relocated from East to West Germany in 1965, going on to study art history, philosophy, and history at Berlin’s Free University, where he completed a PhD in 1972, before teaching at Berlin’s Pädagogische Hochschule.

Ed.: nGbK

With contributions by: Martin Damus