Contemporary ART Space – PLATFORM
PLATFORM is a multifaceted qualification and training project of the City of Munich for visual artists and cultural practitioners.
The project focuses on practice-oriented skill development in cultural management, on professional development programs for visual artists and their careers, as well as on the conception and realization of contemporary art and cultural projects. In this sense, PLATFORM understands itself quite literally as a platform: for exchange, experimentation, professionalization, and new impulses within Munich’s art scene.
PLATFORM organizes exhibitions and cultural projects, lectures, workshops and offers five traineeships in cultural management each year. The trainees develop and realize projects while gaining comprehensive insights into the working structures and practices of the cultural sector. In addition to opportunities for hospitations in Munich and international placements (funded by Erasmus+), PLATFORM provides an open and supportive environment in which emerging cultural practitioners can test and implement their ideas.
As a non-commercial art space, PLATFORM functions as an experimental field that encourages creativity, initiative, and self-responsibility. Openness to process, critical thinking, and the acceptance of failure are integral parts of its working and learning ethos.
PLATFORM regularly generates new impulses for the local and international art scene through exhibitions and other formats addressing current discourses (including Beyond the Spectacle, BeLonging, Salvaging Solidarities), projects in public space such as Kunst Kioske, the professional development series UPDATE, the PERSPEKTIVEN funding award of Kunstclub13, and the research and networking project Hot Spots of Art, which focuses on Munich’s independent art spaces.
Since 2009, PLATFORM has been funded by the Munich Employment and Qualification Program (MBQ) of the Department of Labor and Economic Affairs. The project is run by Münchner Arbeit gemeinnützige GmbH.
In brief, PLATFORM offers:
- Skill development and practical experience for emerging cultural managers through PLATFORM traineeships
- Post-academic professional development through seminars and workshops for visual artists and cultural practitioners;
- Art and cultural projects, events, and exhibitions in PLATFORM’s exhibition space on Tumblingerstraße as well as in cooperation with partner institutions in Munich and beyond.
Traineeships
PLATFORM focuses in particular on the training of young cultural managers and curators. Each year, five trainees work on projects and exhibitions as part of a training on the job and are prepared for cultural work through educational activities such as workshops and seminars. They are given the opportunity to put the knowledge they gained during their university studies into practice and to develop new fields of work and an independent professional profile in direct contact with other cultural professionals. In addition to working on existing projects, the trainees can conceptualize and, if feasible, implement projects of their own. Furthermore, an insight into another Munich cultural institution is possible through “hospitation”.
Education
PLATFORM has various educational programs for visual artists and cultural managers. The most important is UPDATE, a program in cooperation between PLATFORM and the Berufsverband Bildender Künstlerinnen und Künstler München und Oberbayern e.V. (Professional Association of Visual Artists Munich and Upper Bavaria), which offers practical seminars for issues of a professional contemporary art scene. The aim is to provide support and training in entrepreneurial activities and new fields of work. Various topics are covered, such as public relations, art and cultural mediation, financing and legal issues and art in architecture. The content is taught by experienced professionals in the field.
STUDIOS
The PLATFORM ATELIERS were located in a former industrial area in the south of Munich. In a yellow and blue building visible from afar, they covered a 2,000 square metre floor in the immediate vicinity of the Aidenbachstraße underground station. Twenty-three bright studios were available to professional creative artists until the end of 2025. The studios are managed and rented out by Münchner Arbeit gGmbH.