3.3 How do communities value beauty and art?

4 min read•june 18, 2024

Nathan Wichert

AP German 🇩🇪

29 resources

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Wie legt eine Gesellschaft Wert auf Schönheit und Ästhetik?

Die Künste schaffen kulturelles Engagement und prägen reflektierende Individuen. Infolgedessen haben Menschen in Gemeinschaften ein tieferes Verständnis für sich selbst und ihr Leben. Es gibt auch ein erhöhtes Einfühlungsvermögen gegenüber anderen und eine Wertschätzung der Vielfalt menschlicher Erfahrungen und verschiedener Kulturen, von denen sie nicht ein Teil sind.

The arts create cultural engagement and help shape reflective individuals. As a result, people in communities have a deeper understanding of themselves and their lives. There is also increased empathy with respect to others, and an appreciation of the diversity of human experience and various cultures outside of their own. ✌️

Kunst und das damit verbundene kulturelle Engagement helfen Minderheitengruppen, eine Stimme zu finden und ihre Identität auszudrücken. Sie können Menschen dazu bringen, über Probleme nachzudenken, mit denen die Gesellschaft konfrontiert ist. Kunst- und Kulturinterventionen werden häufig eingesetzt, um nach bewaffneten Konflikten zur Friedenskonsolidierung und -heilung beizutragen und den Gemeinden zu helfen, mit den Ursachen von Traumata umzugehen und Versöhnung herbeizuführen.

Arts and the cultural engagement it creates help minority groups find a voice and express their identity. They can engage people in thinking about problems our society is facing. There is a widespread use of arts and cultural interventions to help peace-building and healing after armed conflict, helping communities to deal with the sources of trauma and bringing about reconciliation. ✊🏻✊🏼✊🏾✊🏿💗✊🏿✊🏾✊🏼✊🏻

Graffiti 🏙

Graffiti is a poetic creation of the streets. Graffiti is a worldwide phenomenon, but how it is seen by people and dealt with by those in charge varies widely depending on where you are. A walk through the streets of Berlin quickly reveals why it is sometimes referred to as the graffiti capital of Europe. Graffiti is not just about how something looks, but rather the reactions it gets; in other words, it has to do with provocation. Berlin is a big provocative magnet for artists from all over the world.
Berlin has a strong culture when it comes to visual street art, with the East Side Gallery being one of the best examples to illustrate how graffiti can be interpreted as a striking form of protest. Featuring 105 paintings by artists from all over the world, the lively gallery is not only visually stunning but also portrays the rebellion against years of tyranny, transforming the oppressing mural into an authentic vehicle that expresses desired political change and personal freedom.
After the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the city witnessed a complete artistic revolution. Western graffiti artists went to eastern Germany eager to make art, hoping to convey what it really meant to be free. Once thought of as acts of vandalism and destruction, graffiti and other types of street art are beginning to be recognized as a form of artistic expression in Germany.
- In 2020, after the death of George Floyd, his face was painted on the wall to raise awareness, and people from all over the world could recognize this graffiti painting.

Preventing vandalism through organization

IBUG

The Industriebrachenumgestaltung (industrial wasteland redesign) Urban Culture Festival, IBUG for short, started as an unofficial graffiti meeting and has developed into an urban culture project of international renown. The festival has been taking place in Germany since 2006.

Image taken from fotocummunity.de.

URBAN ART WEEK

URBAN ART WEEK in Berlin features numerous exhibitions, live paintings, murals, graffiti jams, workshops, film screenings, guided tours, and talks to help make urban art more visible and provide insight into the development of the art movement.

Image taken from dw.com.

STAMP festival

STAMP (Street Arts Melting Pot) turns the Altona district of Hamburg into a giant festival, where creative outbursts occur everywhere and surprise performances lurk behind every corner.

Image taken from circostrada.org.

Museums

Museum Island, Berlin

Five of Berlin’s most prominent museums can be found on this unique UNESCO World Heritage Site which lies in the middle of the River Spree. Among them is the Alte Nationalgalerie which houses around 1,800 paintings and 1,500 sculptures from the Romantic and Impressionist eras. The Altes Museum, meanwhile, showcases stone sculptures, vases, craft objects, and jewelry dating back to ancient Greece. And if you’re interested in Egyptian history, you will also discover a stunning head sculpture of Egyptian Queen Nefertiti over at the Neues Museum.

Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg

Located in Nürnberg, the Germanisches Nationalmuseum is Germany’s largest museum of art and cultural history. It boasts an enormous collection of 25,000 objects dating back from prehistoric times to the present day. Among these are weapons and armor, paintings and sculptures, and early scientific instruments.

Städel, Frankfurt

The Städel Museum on the museum embankment in Frankfurt am Main has a collection of over 3,000 European masterpieces encompassing 700 years, from Lucas Cranach and Sandro Botticelli to Gerhard Richter and Wolfgang Tillmans. The Städel Museum has been working to digitize its entire collection for the sake of preservation and to ensure people from all over the world can enjoy it. The Digital Collection allows visitors to browse by topic.

Browse Study Guides By Unit

👨‍👩‍👧Unit 1 – Families in Germany

🗣Unit 2 – Language & Culture in Germany

🎨Unit 3 – Beauty & Art in Germany

3.0Unit 3 overview: Einflüsse von Schönheit und Kunst

3.1Einflüsse von Schönheit und Kunst

3.2How does art both challenge and reflect cultural perspectives?

3.3How do communities value beauty and art?