A panic room with Putin’s likeness doesn’t exactly have a calming effect. Anyone who entered the halls of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts on Wednesday evening would perhaps rather quickly leave the room of the artist duo M+M aside and turn to the poster displays of the Ministry of Art. However, reading the adjectives “creative” and “innovative” repeated umpteen times on a pale blue background did not calm people down in the long term. Why are posters printed that demonstrate the opposite of what is claimed? Wouldn’t it make more sense to spend the nice money on literary grants, for example – in the hope that writers would use it more creatively?
And now for the good news: this is already happening. Because Minister Markus Blume had invited to the Academy to believe it or not 22 literary grants to be awarded. In addition to the six work grants that are awarded every two years by the Ministry of Art and are endowed with 7,000 euros, this year there are 16 more grants with different amounts. An additional 44,000 euros were distributed as part of the state government’s free art restart package; if you add the art prizes, which will be awarded in November, and the publishing prizes that have just been awarded, then in 2022 there will be a lot of literature promotion.
The poet Armin Steigenberger wants to make a “contribution to the beautification of the world”.
When Blume speaks of the “appreciation” that one wants to show the authors of the Free State, it will certainly be honored that evening. A lot of effort was made, an elaborate brochure was created, two workshop talks including readings were organized – the fact that the appreciation takes two very long hours is at least easy for the minister, who is chatting animatedly, to accept. In this way, one can of course also find out in which projects the literature scholarship holders are currently living out their creativity: The poet Daniel Bayerstorfer is thinking about Antigone, his colleague Armin Steigenberger wants to make a “contribution to the beautification of the world”. Thomas Lang is writing the novel “The Driving Giant”, young adult author Kilian Leypold is writing a historical young adult novel set in the Thirty Years’ War. Comic artist Uli Oesterle is working on the continuation of the comic “Vatermilch”, Dana von Suffrin is working on another family novel after “Otto”. Larger working grants also go to Sandra Hoffmann, Andreas Andrej Peters and Ulrike Schäfer, along with twelve other grants worth 2,000 euros.
Jovana Reisinger shows how important each individual grant is. On the one hand, the author tells how such allowances “help her to sleep more”. On the other hand, in her award-winning short story “The Beautiful View”, she describes a woman who is standing at the window on the 49th floor of a high-rise building – like she was in Beijing a while ago, where she was able to travel to because of another award. It can be concluded that scholarships not only alleviate the panic-inducing existential worries of many artists. They also clearly encourage creativity.