05 Not A Hobby: Dirk Rathke

This episode is a little different than the previous Not A Hobby interviews - our guest is Dirk Rathke, an artist living and working in Berlin, Germany, and he does not have a full time job that he balances with his art career. But I wanted to interview him anyways since I feel like there is a fascination among the artist community in the US that longingly looks to their European colleagues. There is a sense that the funding and general support from the European governments for their artists is much more generous, so that they are able to focus full time on their art career without having to take 2nd or even third jobs. Dirk is a painter and has lived in Berlin quite some time. He was in Houston for an exhibition late last year and I wanted to ask him some frank questions about what the assistance situation is really like in Germany. You’ll be surprised how familiar it all sounds despite some glaring differences.