Project Funding Support for Artists and Cultural Practitioners in Germany

The focus areas of the opportunity are artistic projects in the fine, applied, and performing arts, artistic photography, literature, music, film, design, architecture, and media art, interdisciplinary projects, projects with supra-regional or international visibility and corresponding collaborations, projects with original, unusual approaches or forms of expression, innovative arrangements or with an experimental character, projects with themes of public significance or reference to issues or conflicts that stimulate discussion and have a correspondingly lasting impact, projects with a focus on children and young people to encourage their engagement with art and culture and to refine their aesthetic sensibilities, project goals that transcend disciplines, genres or sectors, support for individual artistic projects as a whole as well as for project components such as concept development or supporting marketing measures, creation of catalogues raisonnés of contemporary artists, support for printing and production costs for artist catalogues by living artists in the fine and applied arts with up to €8,000, support for literary works excluding debut works with up to €4,000, support for recording costs for musical publications with a fixed amount of €8,000, support for website design costs with €2,000.

Project grants may be applied for by individuals or by legal entities such as associations, public foundations, or companies, while artist collectives or groups may choose either to form a general partnership or appoint an individual applicant to assume project rights and obligations. Only projects that have not yet commenced at the time of application are eligible for support, although an early commencement may be permitted upon justified request and prior approval. Funding is generally provided through partial financing and does not usually exceed 50 percent of total project expenses, although total financing may be granted as an exception for projects costing up to €5,000.

Film projects with a duration of more than 30 minutes receive a non-repayable grant. Natural persons cannot claim in-kind contributions as part of their financing plan, while legal entities may include in-kind contributions of their own up to a maximum of 10 percent of total expenditure. Project funding supports high-quality artistic work that demonstrates originality and feasibility and may include concept development or marketing components to provide visibility for the project.

The Catalogue Raisonné Program supports contemporary artists in systematically documenting their complete body of artworks and contributes to the preservation and presentation of the artistic heritage of Saxony-Anhalt. Funding is awarded up to €30,000 and may include eligible expenses such as consultant fees, support from student assistants, printing costs, research-related travel, photographic documentation and office supplies, provided that these are directly linked to the cataloguing process. The catalogue raisonné must be digitally compiled using a program provided by the foundation, stored on the foundation’s server and later published in excerpts, and must also be submitted as a printed publication, with ten copies handed over to the foundation.

Eligible applicants for catalogue raisonné funding are artists with a demonstrable connection to Saxony-Anhalt who were born around 1955 or later and have at least 25 years of professional artistic experience, documented through exhibitions, publications, catalogues or academic credentials. The program particularly focuses on East German artistic heritage, GDR art, and the post-war art history of Saxony-Anhalt up to the present day. Multiple applications are permitted if an earlier submission was not approved.

These funding opportunities provide substantial support to artists and cultural practitioners in realising high-quality artistic projects, publishing their work and preserving regional artistic heritage through documentation that remains accessible to the wider public.

For more information, visit Art Foundation of the State of Saxony-Anhalt.