IIn September the time had finally come again: Hamburg’s Senator for Culture Carsten Brosda (SPD) was able to gather his community around him after a long pandemic abstinence. First he opened the Reeperbahn Festival, then a few days later the Hamburg Film Festival. Some cultural workers come to such events, apart from the free beer, simply because of Brosda’s speeches.
Finally they hear how Brosda not only thanks them for the organization of this and that and wishes them good luck and success, rather they wait longingly for the political envoy to lift them and themselves and everyone present to a higher stage, explains to them in strong sentences and with a passionate tremor in their voice what they are actually doing. And for whom. And why. In the end, it’s always about community, about experience, about holding up a mirror to society so that it can see what it is and what it isn’t. Or not yet, because hope and utopia are always with him.
In Hamburg, Brosda has been associated with the office of Minister of State for Culture for some time, but for a long time it was a bit pitying. Although he thought and considers himself absolutely suitable – his Hamburg fanboys and girls do that anyway – the SPD in the federal government seemed so far from being able to have a say in the allocation of posts even after the election that for the powerful rhetorician from the Hanseatic city should not be led to the capital.
But now the SPD has become the strongest force, and suddenly a change of metropolis is within reach. Brosda, born 46 years ago in Gelsenkirchen, is not only a political and cultural scientist with a doctorate, but also a fan of Schalke 04. Like his club, he is aiming for promotion as soon as possible.
In fact, he is considered a favorite in a Scholz government to succeed Minister of State Monika Grütters, but things can always go wrong in coalition negotiations. Brosda knows this, and not just because “disruption” and the new power that comes from it is one of his favorite topics. He even wrote a book about it called “The Destruction”.
Brosda has been part of the Scholz team for many years. When he became Minister of Labor in 2007, Brosda was already in Berlin, after moving to Hamburg City Hall in 2011, Scholz caught up with him as the Senate’s media representative, and when the then Senator for Culture Barbara Kisseler succumbed to cancer in 2016, Brosda was promoted to his current office.
But he has more than just a career association in common with Scholz. Both appreciate the exchange on socio-theoretical works, and they share the basic social-democratic idea of combining the aesthetics of culture with the forces of society. The two of them recently published a guest article together in “Zeit”, entitled: “For spirit and power to close ranks”.
It is also the task of culture to prevent further segmentation of society. And so, for example, a museum of modernism, as is planned in Berlin, could pay into this account. “Public spaces for art and especially for modern art make sense. They confront us with irritations and inspirations that broaden our worldview and enrich our lives, ”Brosda said two years ago.
Senator for Culture in Hamburg
In Hamburg, however, he also has to deal with topics that need more than rhetoric. He does not want to tear down the largest Bismarck monument in the world, looking towards the port of Hamburg – there is a demand – but “re-contextualize it”. In the debate about the return of so-called looted art, including from Hamburg museums, Brosda has recently been very active in reaching an agreement on how to deal with the Benin bronzes, which are to be permanently exhibited in Benin City. Brosda is then a politician who finds the disruption exciting, but organizes orderly processes himself.
As President of the German Stage Association and as Chairman of the Cultural Forum of Social Democracy, Brosda is already active on the national stage today, in the pandemic period he also advocated vehemently in this role that the cultural institutions are at least not treated worse than other areas. He took organized funds from various pots, made himself a public advocate for culture and was able to organize a kind of basic security for the artists – and this is probably the strongest argument for Brosda as a representative of culture in the federal government, because he is well connected and capable Not only to distribute funds, but also to acquire them.
Unlike Grütters, however, Brosda rejects its own Ministry of Culture; rather, it is important to better network the various levels between the federal and state levels. The official seat in the Chancellery would have another decisive advantage anyway: Scholz and Brosda do not have to assert themselves against any cultural ambitions of coalition partners.
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