The Kulturwerk des Berufsverband Bildender Künstler Berlins GmbH (Cultural Project of the Professional Association of Berlin Artists Ltd.) promotes art by providing the in-frastructure necessary for its creation.
In deliberate opposition to individual sponsorship through stipends and prizes, the Kulturwerk provides access for all professional artists to studios, to a variety of work-shops, and to tenders for art in the public sphere. The services of the Kultuwerk's print workshop and sculpture workshop are available at affordable fees, while the services of the Office for Art in Public Spaces, as well as those of the studio office, are free. With its studios and offices, the Cultural Project is the only institution in the contemporary fine art scene in Berlin supporting the process of creating art. More than four thousand artists use the Kulturwerk's services each year to various extents.
In 1973, the 2000-member artists' association built its print workshop with public funds in the artist residency Künstlerhaus Bethanien in order to make it accessible to all artists. A year later, the Kulturwerk obtained its current legal form as a non-profit limited company, or GmbH. This company is supported by the artists themselves through "bbk berlins e.V."

Until the beginning of the 1990s, three more institutions had emerged with which bbk berlins could establish the Kulturwerk as a service center for artistic projects in Ber-lin: The Office for Art on Public Spaces (1979), the sculpture workshop in Wedding (1985), the studio office with its studio commissioner (1991). Currently, a media work-shop is undergoing planning and construction phase. This workshop is in response to the large demand for posts in the area of digital visual art and art presentations.

Basic Principles
Artist Self-Management/ Freedom of Art
The bbk and its facilities are committed to the freedom of art. The autonomy and in-dependence of art and art enterprise from political or official standards, and the pro-tection of art from dominance by commercial exploitation, are prerequisites for its authenticity. The promotion of art is organized outside of government and placed in the hands of independent sponsors and initiatives that operate with individual re-sponsibility. They contribute significantly to the potential for unlimited and, conse-quently, self-managed and free art development.

Self-Help Project
Since its start, the Kulturwerk has considered itself a self-help project for Berlin art-ists. Founder, representative and partner is bbk berlins e.V. It works on behalf of art-ists and for the common good. The facilities established by the artists are available in Berlin to all artists without restriction, either free of charge or in exchange from a small fee.

Organized Sponsorship of Artists
The artist sponsorships set up by the bbk are intended to counteract restrictions on artistic work such as a lack of workshops, studios or materials. The basic principle behind the subsidizing of infrastructure is the conviction that only an unhindered, continuous artistic process can lead to quality, originality and diversity.

The organized sponsorship of artists is intentionally distinguished from individual sponsorship, since through individual sponsorship the abilities of the profession as a whole cannot be ensured, and the development of quality at all levels cannot be subsi-dized. On the contrary: Individual sponsorship requires sufficient infrastructure for art creation, and builds on that.