Manos Cangaris is an energetic and witty interlocutor who does not shy away from humor, irony and self-irony, while at the same time maintaining the focus necessary for the position of president Berlin Academy of Arts, institutions that are almost 330 years old. As a composer, he tried his hand at the genre of musical theater (neither opera nor theater, both opera and theater), primarily short pieces, as a poet he published several collections of hermetic poetry, and as a drummer several very unorthodox albums. In the position of president of the Academy, he is very active as in Germany as well as on the European level. He believes that the freedom of art is threatened in many ways today, and that the democratic process of creation and free decision-making is one of the key conditions for a healthy art scene. He came to Serbia to talk with his colleagues with the idea of getting to know the local artistic and political scene, because, he says, there is not enough information about it in Germany.
"WEATHER" Berlin is one of the artistic centers of Europe. Do you share that opinion??
MANOS CANGARIS: It's hard for me to say that, Berlin is one of the cities where I live. But now, with the Academy, of course, I'm there very often. Berlin became attractive after the nineties, after the changes, both for Germans and for young people and artists coming from abroad. I would say - from everywhere. In the beginning it was also related to the economy, you could, for example, get a huge studio for little money and that was at a time when New York, for example, was becoming very expensive. Berlin was a real alternative, with a truly anarchic and very lively cultural scene. They were initiatives that, so to speak, came from below: many lofts that were reached from below and many small initiatives. It seems to me that there is still some. And Berlin, in the meantime, has become expensive, which is normal, it is a typical process of gentrification. But it is still very attractive, especially to young people from all over. And that, of course, is wonderful. It's like a vitamin shot.
What is the role of the state in supporting artists in Germany?
There is a huge tradition of supporting the arts in Germany, even before democratic times. I mean the aristocracy. In small territorial units, principalities, courts competed in supporting the arts: if my neighbor has an orchestra, then I must have one too. Or the theater. Competition can liven things up, and some of that remains even today. The prince's basic idea was, therefore, that the state must support art, and art must be independent. That idea is still alive.
Today, for practical reasons, funding is being reduced as the state invests more and more in, for example, the military. But where does the money come from? As everywhere, problems arise there. The money makers say, say, "Okay, it's culture, it's art, but it's all a little crazy. We want the old ones. We want Goethe, we want, you know, Homer." That's good, but they were a little crazy too.
Basically, however, the state needs more money and has less income, so it starts to cut budgets for culture, especially for the free scene. That's a big problem. I have already mentioned the initiatives in Berlin that come "from below", because the ideas come from the free scene: they are the ideas of the future, the vitamins of the future.
The basic role of the state is to understand, to understand itself, and that it needs to support art, and art must be free and independent. This is especially clear after the Nazi era. That is why the Academy of Arts is an independent institution, and no one - not the government, no one - can interfere in the selection of members. We elect members, because that is the foundation of democracy. The members who come in are elected in different sections or at the plenum, and no one can force us to elect someone else. It was the other way around with the Nazis. One of the first things they did was they forced people to leave the Academy, like Heinrich Mann, so very famous people, mostly Jews or left-leaning artists.
photo: marija janković...
The Berlin Academy of Arts has a rich and turbulent past?
The Berlin Academy was founded in 1696 by Frederick the Great's grandfather. In the beginning, these were absolutist ideas, the kings wanted to have the best artists in the cage, for their own sake: "I want a sculpture for myself", in that style. It was the same in architecture, or in urban development. But the Academy went through different phases. In the 18th century, a man named Daniel Hodowiecki appeared, also one of my predecessors, if you will - he was a brilliant illustrator and cartoonist, and one of the first reformers of the Academy. He tried to turn it into a more independent artistic society. Women began to enter the Academy. It was a place driven by the idea of a free association of artists where artists could meet and discuss aesthetics and think about the future. And I would say that's basically still what we do.
And after World War II?
We had two academies then. The first one was founded in East Germany, I think in 1950. And then, of course, the West: "Oh, we fell asleep, we need that too." The eastern one kept something like Master's degree, which was the rest of the pedagogical work. But both Academies were a kind of oasis within society, because after the Nazi experience, even in the East, it was clear that what could not be said in public could be said within the Academy, even published. For example, there is a literary magazine, called "Sinn und Form", "Meaning and Form", which was founded in the East and in it texts could be published that went against the ruling ideology.
At the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, both academies existed, but it was clear that they would have to merge, which was a very difficult process, for several reasons that you can guess for yourself.
There were two presidents: Heiner Müller in the eastern part and Walter Jens from the west. Basically, though, they did a good job. One of the first ideas, perhaps Heiner Müller's main idea, was to immediately establish a European association, but it was done step by step. Then the Academies merged.
The academy is, therefore, a place where artists meet and discuss problems, projects, about art...
Yes, that's one thing, but there's also the program. We also have festivals or exhibitions, we do what the members decide on. There is also a Senate, because artists cannot spend all their time in the Academy. In addition, we have one of the world's most valuable archives for interdisciplinary projects. There's Heiner Müller, Brecht, Benjamin, Georg Gross, Anna Zegers, John Hartfield, etc. It's really huge. The first center of gravity came from the East. The Eastern Archive turned 75 years old last year. It is a living archive. We call it the metabolism between living artists and history, and especially today it becomes interesting again because the artists who had to leave Germany or Europe and go into exile have left precious testimonies. The official idea, the legal one, is to advise. To advise politicians, to say what they, perhaps, do not want to hear. But officially we are the ones who go to the German government and discuss cultural policy.
Why are you here now?, in Serbia?
My predecessor, Jeanine Merepfel, the first female president after approximately 320 years, founded the so-called European Union of Academies in 2020. Why? Because freedom of art, freedom of speech, freedom of societies are threatened everywhere, not only in Europe. The alliance is therefore - let's put it this way - a kind of instrument of solidarity. Before I became president, we went to Budapest, during Orban's era, to Poland, and last year we were in Bratislava, where a huge conference was organized, with Milo Rau, with many European institutions and representatives, and ended with the so-called Bratislava Declaration. That sounds pompous, but it means something. Before we came to Belgrade, we were in contact with local people and someone suggested that we talk. This is, you know, a very alive, lively alliance, with more than 70 institutions. Last October we were in Malta for a conference on migration, right in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. We are in solidarity. Let's say, when the regional government, the right, reduced the budget in Madrid, for example, we react, we write, we speak... So, in conversations with local artists, we were told that an international voice would be welcome, some kind of international attention. Because the problem, especially in Eastern Europe, or with Eastern Europe, is that there is not enough information, every three months we get one line in the news from this area. Student protests, for example, only get one headline in the news, and then for the next three months - Gaza, Israel and Ukraine and Iran. Or not even a word about Sudan, where probably the worst humanitarian disaster is taking place. It is the same with Serbia. We heard something about the fall of the roof of the Railway Station in Novi Sad, then about the student protests, so if you are an expert in this area, look for news and, well, that's it, but there is no analysis, we don't know what is actually happening. So, as I said, we are in a position to ask, to learn, you know better than us, and the instrument founded by Jeanine Merapfel was conceived as a tool to create a true European network.
Your task is, therefore, both politically and artistically. Do you think artists, as individuals, they have to react to the political situation, or artists have the right to belong to themselves, to your world, regardless of what is happening around them?
It is, of course, an ongoing debate that we have within the Academy, because it points to the two poles that always exist. I would say that an artist must do both, "the other" cannot be ignored. One is related to the other. Sometimes art that does not pretend to be political, that is not labeled "this is political art", is more political than art that considers itself political. After all - I have to say - do we know what art is? I believe that we have to answer that question moment by moment. Where is the truth in all this? Both engaged and disengaged art are necessary. If, for example, I decide to write a stupid, small, hermetic poem that no one understands, it is necessary and had to be written. That song won't kill anyone. It is the opposite of what is happening in the world. But artists, as members of human societies, are responsible like everyone else. Everyone must have a relationship both to the concrete political situation and to the fundamental political situation, but that relationship must not be a prison for the artist, as when he is told, for example: "Ah, you only write hermetic little poems, no, that is not necessary". Because what is art and what is politics, in the end? Both seem clear to us, but they are not. Both art and politics are a process. We both have to explore and develop all the time.
The key word is time. Why, for example, did I become the president of this institution? I write some opaque, small music-theatre pieces. It's a composed installation, if you will, so it's no longer for the opera stage. It's quite hermetic, you might say, and doesn't automatically address the big political issues. But I did that from the beginning for political reasons, because the public has changed a lot.
Therefore, we still have the idea of public, the idea of open space, like ago. The idea is as follows: you have a different opinion than me, let's discuss, and then you say - no. In fact, the category comes from the Greek now, which means to shout, to announce what you have to say agori. This is exactly how the category is arrived at, through discussion. Today, the public is on the mobile phone. We have social networks, we have five news browsers at the same time. And I could see that - because I'm a prophet (laughter) - back in the seventies, because I was playing in bands; I improvised, I played the drums and I wanted to be a pop star (laughs); luckily i didn't make it. But what was the music? To have a new album The Doors, or Jimi Hendrix's "please, let it go!" Vinyl. Nice. Or a Beethoven symphony. More and more music came through the speakers, and the situation today - you can have 500.000 songs in this little computer. The public has really changed a lot.
How do you react to that change??
The idea of theater is to make things visible. Visible to consciousness. So, of course, the theater must change whenever the public changes. That's why I started writing what today are called immersive pieces, for small audiences. Immersive. Art is no longer only in the opera. (Versailles was something else. At Versailles it was partying and drinking, trying to touch someone's bottom, partying and from the beginning, a handsome castrato, something like a pop star of that era.) And then, in the bourgeois era, music demanded immobility and seriousness. You are listening Don Giovanni and you don't move.
But our experience is different. We construct ourselves. We are on stage together. We are a stage and we are used to something constantly happening on stage. That's why I wrote pieces that you can't duplicate, you can't put in a speaker, you can't re-contextualize. My music is absolutely anti-economic, but I'm still alive. You couldn't reproduce it, but people were saying, "You know, I saw something weird, but kind of interestingly weird." And so the director of a festival, after 20 years, said: "Ah, maybe, well, it's a little strange, but we can invite him." And we could create the following scene: a central house with 10 scenes, people can walk around like at a fair, go here and there, one piece only three minutes for three people, one in the elevator... The question is also political, what kind of memory system do we use? Thanks to the public, you gain awareness of yourself. Art speaks to you. I can, you know, connect a piece, I can write a piece so that you matter here and now, as a whole person. However, how important are we in this and this world?
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