With its grant programme, the Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg (Arts Foundation Baden-Württemberg) provides targeted support to young talents from the visual and performing arts, literature, music, art criticism, and cultural management, whose permanent residence or focus of work is in Baden-Württemberg, or who have spent a significant part of their life in Baden-Württemberg, which has been decisive for their artistic work.
The provision of financial support is intended to enable young creative talents to conduct ‘basic research into the arts’ and to further develop their work. The purpose of the Foundation is to provide ‘start capital’ to young artists and cultural producers during the often difficult, initial phases of their careers by offering them financial flexibility and introducing them to a broader public audience through publications, exhibitions, and events.
The grant of up to 12,000 Euros is not a residency grant – grantees are therefore not restricted in their choice of where to live and produce work. In addition, current and former grantees have the option of using the Foundation’s studios in Berlin and Stuttgart.
Promoting Plurality
The Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg is committed to adapting its grant program to changes in artistic modes of production and to developing the grants further in order to better support specific professional fields. The grant for new music formats was introduced in 2012 in order to give emerging artists the opportunity to apply not only in the categories of classical, jazz, and composition but also pop, rock, experimental and computer-generated music.
In addition to supporting art production, the Foundation is also especially interested in promoting its creative environment. The grant for cultural management and the grant for art criticism are examples of how this vision has been successfully implemented.
The grants are awarded annually to approximately twenty applicants, each of whom are selected by a professional jury.
