In May, the Eurovision Song Contest took place in Vienna, an event that is often treated rather dismissively by the “classical music bubble.” On social media, politicians who attended were even sharply criticized from within that “bubble.”
But who decides which forms of artistic expression are entitled to exist? What kind of dialogue about them do we allow? This immediately leads me to the question of boycotting artists or states in the arts (or in sports as well): who determines who is right and who is wrong? And above all, how do we deal with those artists (or athletes) who come from countries whose ideology we do not share? Do we always know the circumstances in which they — and their families — live, especially if they express themselves publicly and perhaps even critically toward their own countries?
Where is our willingness to encounter other positions, other opinions, other aesthetic sensibilities, and other interests, to try to understand them, and then to enter into dialogue about them?