As a German artist in Canada, I have come to realize that there are fundamental differences in how Canadian artists experience their working conditions compared to German artists.

Many of my German colleagues regard their situation as self-exploitive. They mourn the lack of justice. Structures of decision-making are governed by the laws of the market, or by people in institutionalised positions of power, like curators, museum directors, and professors. There seem to be no opportunities to submit applications, and they are regarded as meaningless compared to a network of connections. But being an artist always means having a double burden - maintain your own production and finance it at the same time. The trade union, IG Medien, for example, has fought for years, in vain, for artist's fees. But the artists usually don't approach the public, lamenting their situation only to their colleagues because, in our society, lack of money is considered failure.

In Canada, artist fees are paid. The art scene is dominated by artist-run centres, where artists, as well as curators, have to apply for shows. The juries are made up mainly of artists. Because of short-term contracts and constant evaluations, the threshold for attaining a teaching position is lower than in Germany.
Canadian artists feel that the decisions made are for the most part fair, but quite often they complain that a relevant art market is missing. It is mentioned quite often that there is no competition and no public perception of art.

While my recent stay in Canada, I had the idea to start a public discussion on this subject. With a-site, we set up a forum.

I asked artist from Montreal to start an open talk in this forum. First it will be a closed forum, only to read by the public, maybe later on we will open it.
Click here to go to the forum

My personal questions are:
- Is art competition?
- Do difficult social / living conditions force you into higher performance?
- Do harsher (social) arguments lead to better results?
- Does suffering lead to passionate and more relevant art?
- Do the high social security levels in the social democratic state make    the artist self-contented and lazy?
- Does art conflict with democracy?

I would like to start the discussion by quoting Michael Hutter, who calls government funded art 'state art'. Art in this sense has to represent the opinions, legacy and policy of the state. The modern constitutional state creates, finances and controls organizations like museums and artist-run centres, in order to enable a secular support of the arts. Such institutions do influence, without it being intended, art production and possibilities for development.