Jurors from the Kunstfonds Foundation, a prominent German body that funds contemporary art projects, have publicly denounced the country’s top cultural policy official after he requested the names of its current members.
In a statement first reported by Der Spiegel, the art fund’s jury described the initial request from Minister of State for Culture Wolfram Weimer, made in March 2025, as “political interference” that had the potential to infringe on artistic freedom of expression. Weimer plays a key role in shaping Germany’s cultural policy and oversees the allocation of millions of euros in federal cultural funding to grants, awards, and projects. The selection of awardees, however, is traditionally the responsibility of independent committees.
The statement’s signatories questioned Weimer’s nonpartisanship, pointing to his controversial involvement in the German Booksellers’ Award, where nominations are traditionally selected by an independent committee.
In this case, however, Weimer, who was appointed in 2025, reportedly contacted the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, seeking to exclude three bookstores deemed too left-wing. When questioned by the bookseller about the exclusion, Weimer cited “findings relevant to the protection of the constitution” from the agency, without elaboration, per Die Sachsen News. The Kunstfonds jurors said the incident “has shaken our fundamental understanding of democratic cultural funding.” (A spokeswoman for Weimer told Die Sachsen News that “for reasons of confidentiality, there was no other way of dealing with the three special cases in question. In this respect, we refer to the Federal Ministry of the Interior.”)
The letter continued that its signatories rejected “any attempt to influence us and the resulting damage to our work and our reputation as an independent jury,” citing Article 5(3) of Germany’s Basic Law, which guarantees freedom of art, science, research, and teaching. “However, we view with great concern the increasing attacks and attempts at intimidation by politicians against freedom of expression and artistic freedom.”
Fear of political interference has already affected the selection process, the jurors said, adding that they have received fewer applications than is standard. Applicants are refraining from submitting proposals “not because their artistic practice would violate the democratic order, but because the boundaries of discourse have already shifted due to political pressure,” the jurors said.
In recent years, artists and activists have warned of rising censorship in Germany’s arts and culture, part of a broader cultural shift that has drawn politics into more direct engagement with the sector. Criticism of Israel in particular has prompted accusations of censorship, with some calling for boycotts of major awards and institutions in protest.
Last year, American artist Fareed Armaly declined the Käthe Kollwitz Prize, awarded annually by the German Academy of Arts, citing what he called a “disturbing trend of censorship in Germany” and “a highly politicised, reactionary shift in official cultural policies aimed at silencing advocates for Palestinian rights under international law.”
Among the most controversial recent amendments to German cultural policy came in 2024, when German parliament approved a declaration aimed at combating antisemitism. Critics of the declaration have scrutinized a passage stating that public grants for culture and science may be made conditional on acceptance of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, which has itself been the subject of debate over its application to criticism of Israel.
That year, hundreds of artists signed a document circulated by Strike Germany, an initiative that described itself as “a call to refuse German cultural institutions’ use of McCarthyist policies that suppress freedom of expression, specifically expressions of solidarity with Palestine.” Among those who signed the Strike Germany call were several Turner Prize winners—including Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Charlotte Prodger, and Tai Shani—as well several Berlin-based artists, among them Adam Broomberg, Basma Al-Sharif, and Frieda Toranzo Jaeger.
The Kunstfonds Foundation letter concluded its statement with a warning that the political interventions underway in Germany’s art scene “will be exploited by anti-democratic forces tomorrow.”
