After the scream, now the official piece. With a matching, tad Den Uyl/Van Agt-like title: 'Less where it can, better where it must.'
But let's not laugh too hard. It is quite brave what they have done. Gitta Luyten, Marianne Versteegh, Joke Hubert, Henk Scholten, Siebe Weide and Ben Holvast, together as bosses of arts umbrellas and cultural sector institutes also known as 'the table of six' have written their own austerity plan.
'We recognise the risk that our proposals may be used to implement austerity plans', they state in their introduction, which seems more like an invitation to the arts secretary Halbe Zijlstra, than a warning. With an opinion from the Council for Culture, later this spring, expected to have a similar tone to this piece, the fill-in exercise is a breeze for the cabinet. But they have built in a snag, the gang, sorry, table of six: if the cabinet adopts this piece, it will also adopt the position on culture and its importance formulated as a constitutional article:
"Culture is at the heart of society. Culture contributes to the cohesion, identity and democratic functioning of the Netherlands. To safeguard that public interest, the government monitors the plurality of cultural expressions, guarantees their (geographical) accessibility, stimulates their development and ensures the preservation and disclosure of the history of the country and its inhabitants."
And so if you want that, you have to pay. And not increase VAT. Now yes. So there's a little problem there. Because they don't want to do that anymore. More importantly for Rutte and Zijlstra, by the way, was that they suspect the art world of nepotism. Artists decide among themselves who gets money or not, and that is not helpful when you have a populace that also wants to know what happens to their expensive taxpayers' money. And don't blame them. That's why the system needs to be more transparent. And that's where the Table of Six piece immediately starts to get a bit more woolly.
"In assessing plans, added value (compared to the entire existing offer), shareholding (are relevant partners involved) and the degree of creativity (originality and idiosyncrasy) weigh most heavily. In addition to peer review, the assessment will be based on more objective criteria and broader expertise, for example in the field of communication and innovation."
They explain these a little better later in the piece:
"The self-evidence with which the government and professionals traditionally determined what did and did not deserve support cannot count on much appreciation and also partly ignores new circumstances and developments. Boundaries between high and low culture are blurring, artistic judgement is thus changing, and other interests and other than exclusively intrinsic characteristics of artistic presentations are increasingly playing a role in the consideration of what deserves government support. As a result, judgements on artistic expressions in the future will no longer be based on peer review alone, but to a large extent on objectifiable characteristics of presentation or performance. Assessments will take place on the basis of professional review: experts in all kinds of fields (communication, innovation, economy and culture) in varying compositions will pass judgment on the overall plan of a cultural institution."
In short: because committees with peers are a bit out of date, we are going to extend membership to journalists, captains of industry, media types, directors. Interesting development, especially when it comes to those objective criteria: then we quickly think of audience numbers, subsidy per visitor and amount of followers on twitter.
And that's kind of going on too, because the market of supply and demand is no longer right in art. Never been a problem, so now it is. That is why the government should now stop increasing supply and start focusing everything on increasing demand. And that is what the venues are about.
"After all, the choices that venues make (in the broadest sense of the word) play a crucial role in combining pluralism, accessibility and public interest. They link professional knowledge (via the programmer, curator or critic) to a local, regional or (inter)national audience. There, commercial and publicly funded offerings fold over each other and oversupply is eliminated by the market. That is why the government stimulates more than before through demand: for example, by funding programming and presentation, but also by facilitating crowdfunding and tax measures."
We should take that literally. Where a small theatre company does not come up with Philips to the table, Halbe Zijlstra should:
"To encourage greater social outreach, the central government will enter into partnerships with other governments, market and sector players, private funders and civil society organisations, voluntary and amateur initiatives."
The piece overflows with modern business language, which is funny: you can't come up with philosophers and artists in The Hague these days. Hence, instead of talking about renewal, we talk about innovation, and the term 'Multiplier' taken out. Nice for people with a 7 for economics on the list. But there is something bigger going on. The rules for subsidies are now so restrictive that you can't really talk about 'preservation' or 'stimulation' with any decency. We are now talking about 'commissioning', even the Table of Six acknowledges:
"Therefore, from now on, the government can also provide grants as commissions and commissioning will be widely encouraged. Artists should be given the opportunity to develop self-formulated projects and research provided it adds value or is or can become of exceptional importance."
And when it comes to commissioning, there is another snag: at amounts in excess of one hundred and thirty thousand euros, which must be put out to European tender. Suddenly an orchestra from Slovenia is hooting at the National Ballet.
Download the whole piece here: Less where it can be better where it should be
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