New Culture Council president? 'Van Klink creates a crisis himself so he can then solve it'

Pim van Klink is his name. He has been popping up everywhere lately. Especially when the malign subsidy orientation of the cultural sector needs to be pointed out, every medium calls Van Klink first. Last week, he once again threw his hobbyhorse into the henhouse in the NRC and was invited to sit in on Buitenhof. And according to our trenchcoat-clad coughing source in that Hague parking basement, he applied for the job of chairman of the Council for Culture, succeeding Els Swaab, who resigned in June. But who is Van Klink anyway?

Pim van Klink graduated as an economist from Rotterdam's Erasmus University in 1977. Even then, his doctoral thesis was about the relationship between art and economics. And even then, he notes that from the point of view of existing economic theories, there is no reason for art subsidies. That this makes sense because the arts do not obey existing economic laws - art, in its essence, is supply-oriented and not demand-oriented - and because art might also have a social value rather than just a financial one is a step he will also sometimes skip in later publications.

After graduating, Van Klink holds various policy positions, such as at the Arts Directorate of (then) the Ministry of WVC. He then became director of the theatre De Oosterpoort in Groningen and subsequently director of the Municipal Department of Culture in the same municipality. In that position, he managed to put Groningen on the cultural map. Even then, one of his arguments for this is that every guilder put into culture should reason.

But his success is also due to the good team he has gathered around him. As time goes on, the more Van Klink comes into personal conflict with the people he has to work with. This is told by those involved, but is also evidenced by coverage of Daily newspaper of the north and here.

In fact, due to his harsh and Machiavellian behaviour, at one point almost the entire management team resigns confidence in him. He comes under guardianship of B&W and a pithy report on his performance is published. The media spoke of 'sourced relations'.Finally, in 1998, Van Klink was removed from his post. He was sent home with a not inconsiderable settlement. For instance, he was given a waiting allowance of (at most) 2.5 million guilders.

Van Klink then makes a long round as interim director at various institutions, with Van Klink's personality not always proving workable. Everywhere Van Klink appears, things seem to get messy. At the Residentie Orkest in 2002 a popping conflict between interim director Van Klink and artistic director Leo Samama ). In 2005, he had to step down as interim director at the Popacademie in Leeuwarden, because the students told him and his co-director do not trust.

An Arts&Culture course that Van Klink wants to set up at Nijenrode to train art managers, and which Van Klink presents himself as the initiator of everywhere and nowhere, will not get off the ground in 2009 because there is no interest in it. Not even, it turns out, at Nijenrode. In the media, Van Klink blames the sector for the lack of interest. He calls the lack of attention to management typical. 'Institutions do not see the need.'

So although he has quite a few industrial accidents to his name as a policymaker himself, that does not stop him from voicing strong criticism of the cultural sector as a scientist.

Indeed, in between all the business, Van Klink manages to get his PhD. In 2005, he obtained his doctorate in Groningen with the dissertation Art economy in new perspective . Portee of the story is again that it is difficult to put economic theory alongside the arts. At the same time, Van Klink characterises Dutch cultural policy as irrational and ineffective and argues that it is British Arts Council model is most effective.

Although there appears to be plenty of things to criticise about Van Klink's thesis, such as that he once again ignores the fact that the objectives of art policy do not have to be purely economic, but that social reasons can also be given for it, it is earning him a lot of attention in the media. After all, it is an increasingly popular idea that he proclaims: the cultural sector is subsidy-addicted, a term that Van Klink also used again recently in NRC Handelsblad.

Since his thesis, but especially after the Cabinet plans for culture became public, Van Klink has managed to regain considerable media attention. The sector - familiar with the various perils Van Klink has to his name - looks at it with somewhat raised eyebrows.

People who know Van Klink suspect that he is after a policy position, which would also be evident from his application as chairman of the Council for Culture. But that is tricky because he has been sidelined for some time. 'Van Klink creates a crisis himself so that he can then solve it,' is a recurring theme in Van Klink's career, according to sources. That seems to be working again. The spirit of the times helps Van Klink present himself as a man of the right solution at the right time.

However, he is not yet chairman of the Culture Council. Thanks to his unscientific language, his sometimes unsubtle stances and, above all, his turbulent management history, he is not really taken seriously as a candidate within the arts sector.

On the other hand, given his views for the current secretary of state, he might therefore be the right man in the right place.

Van Klink knows that.