By Melle Daamen
"Then what do you want?" was a question I received quite often in response to my articles last year in NRC, in which I expressed my concerns about the state of the arts in the Netherlands and especially its future. I argued for a fundamental debate from within the arts sector itself, focused on the future, which could include taboo topics such as overproduction and the recognition of excellence. That debate is badly needed. Ageing and declining support are a reality. Digitisation will erode existing business models and globalisation really will not stop at the Dutch border. In five to 10 years, the Facebook generation will definitely take over from the baby boomers. Sitting still and waiting to see what happens to us (a typically Dutch custom we ourselves like to call pragmatism) is not an option. We have to do something. I am happy to deliver a few pointers.
1 From pyramid to funnel
Creating art at the highest level requires money and focus. The creation of excellence and the opportunity to know about it is the basis of any art policy. But current art policy is too focused on maintaining a broad humus layer of fledgling, young artists and new institutions. It is the unproven model of the pyramid, a broad base supposedly necessary for a narrow top. That policy is fragmenting, the institutions are islands, there is little collaboration and too much mediocrity.
Better would be to take the model of the funnel: a cultural policy not primarily aimed at the bottom, but to encourage the best, separate the wheat from the chaff and make what remains accessible to a wide audience. The threshold low, the bar high. Good cultural policy chooses. So fewer institutions, but then also a better financial basis and not squeezing on subsidies.
Generous government spending is needed for excellence, audience loyalty, new forms of presentation (and innovation in that very area), education and also for a better income position for arts makers. Now, for instance, more than half of actors earn less than €12,000 a year. A civilised society should not tolerate that.
2 Review spread policy
A reconsideration of the traditional regional dispersal policy (where all cultural facilities should be just about everywhere) is in order. Many studies show that social life will take place in and between cities. For artists and cultural institutions of the future, the city will be the home base and the world the playing field. And I am talking particularly about big cities.
However, our cultural policy still has a strong 'region' focus. As if distances in the Netherlands are actually as great and unattainable as in France or Germany, countries that, incidentally, have never had such a finely-meshed dispersal policy as ours. A well-to-do Arnhemmer is served with an orchestra no more than 5 kilometres away. A poor adolescent interested in pop music gets the worst of it in the dispersal policy. The current dispersal policy mainly serves the ageing part of the population. It is outdated and too ambitious. Not every province or part of the country needs to have its own symphony orchestra, its own academy, its own theatre or dance company and not at the same level either.
Revising the dispersal policy gives governments room to anticipate the trend towards urbanisation and globalisation. The current international culture policy mainly reasons from our own national borders. We proudly claim to be open, international and tolerant, but in fact we prefer to polder our own country. This is how The Telegraph disgraced, even unfairly, when Toneelgroep Amsterdam can play less locally as a result of its international breakthrough.
3 Think like a multinational company
Those who ignore globalisation lose. But our international cultural policy is still ambivalent; we think that globalisation will 'work itself out'. There is no basis for this presupposition based on the past alone. For instance, we thought we could protect public broadcasting with a simple legal fence around the Netherlands. Until a cleverly devised satellite link from Luxembourg harshly helped us out of that protectionist dream. In the creative industry, international competition has become increasingly fierce. Most of the press, broadcasting and digital distribution has fallen into foreign hands in the past decade (Endemol, Eyeworks, RTL, SBS, Sanoma, Persgroep, Ziggo, UPC, IDTV). Just about the entire pop music industry is in US hands.
Who would have thought 20 years ago that the most important museum would have a Philips wing or the most important concert halls would be named after Heineken or Ziggo? That development will continue. Isn't it illusory to think that in 20 years there won't be a Samsung Orchestra or Tata Steel museum? And that could then go beyond sponsorship to ownership.
For a small country like ours, there is a need in cultural policy to define what is crucial for our art life. What do we really consider important? Once we have made those choices, we will have to invest in them. Probably also beyond our national borders. In our cultural policy, we will have to start behaving like multinationals, without immediately thinking of immediate usefulness within our own national borders. The art and the project are more important than where it takes place or comes from. As a government, do not invent all kinds of projects yourself, but follow artists, cultural institutions and facilitate collaborations initiated by them. Invest big and for the long term. For instance, embrace Johan Simons' idea of a European theatre company without a fixed location, with the best European theatre makers attached to it.
Beware of the trap of costly art projects that focus mainly on its own national prestige. There are countless examples of this, such as recently at the internationally totally insignificant Beijing Design Week, where the Dutch (and Amsterdam) government rushed out with large equipment. Or earlier at the New Island festival in New York. All shots far off target, which achieved nothing in terms of prestige.
4 Innovate
Digitisation and online communication offer unprecedented opportunities for new production and distribution. At the same time, they are overturning traditional revenue models (including copyright). I am convinced that if we wait and do nothing, fixed book prices, for example, will still go under. The only reassuring thought is that Dutch literature and art do not involve that much money, so we probably have some time left.
The government should therefore anticipate precisely now, facilitate new earning models, try out new possibilities, invest. The arts do not have the commercial power to bring this wave of innovation to a successful conclusion entirely on their own. Think about exploring the possibilities of social media. Think of digital distribution, such as the popular live cinema events of (international) operas, concerts and theatre performances. Devise solutions to ensure quality and diversity.
5 Review the concept of quality
Quality is the leading criterion in Dutch cultural policy, almost sacred, but actually meaningless. Quality has to do with originality, expressiveness and craftsmanship. I have the impression that in the assessment, there is a strong emphasis on the element of originality (read innovation) and that craftsmanship and eloquence are inferior.
That has everything to do with hipness syndrome, the hit and run-mentality. If we want to avoid volatility and non-commitment and focus on depth, excellence and audience loyalty, then delay, craftsmanship and depth should be more important criteria than renewal. Art itself will take care of renewal, not 'delay'. The new can even be the enemy of the better.
The renewed policy focus on talent development, for instance, remains stuck in emphasis on young new talent, while attention to further development and deepening is given much less attention. This is a major misunderstanding. Just about the entire working life of an artist like Wim T. Schippers (now 72) can be considered a trajectory of talent development. Rem Koolhaas broke through after the age of 45. And is making a groundbreaking show like Roman Tragedies by Van Hove/Versweyveld no talent development? It is forgotten that talent development also takes place at large and important cultural institutions. Indeed: that is where the basis lies.
6 New guide function
In an age of much supply, much choice, digitisation and globalisation, the authority of the expert, the connoisseur, is declining. Nevertheless, audiences are looking for new guideposts to what is on offer. The crucial link between art maker and audience remains the museums, theatres, concert halls, festivals, libraries, bookshops, film houses. But social media have been added. These are mostly not yet equipped for their new guide function and receive little attention in cultural policy.
That transition is important, but then museums and venues have to respond to changes in consumer behaviour. Then it's not about flat 'consumerism', but rather about bringing art-makers and audiences together properly. The government must want to play a role in that transition.
Simply presenting a collection, performance or concert is no longer enough. Other repertoire is needed, other forms of presentation. NRC did a major survey of the state of theatres this spring and gave a picture of venues trying to find new ways to bring art across the footlights and to their target audience. Some are succeeding better than others.
I must personally confess that I have never seen a really interesting exhibition there, but there is no denying that the Palais de Tokyo in Paris has its own unique way of attracting young audiences to the visual arts. In Amsterdam, institutions such as the Rijksmuseum, the Stadsschouwburg and FOAM succeed in attracting new audiences with new forms of presentation. Others, such as the Concertgebouw (Ligconcerten) and NDT (together with Club Trouw) are trying out new forms.
At other institutions, there is sometimes deafening silence, basking in the waning attention of an ageing cohort of baby boomers. That is a dead end. Remember that refreshments used to be served at tables during concerts at the Concertgebouw. I'm not saying that should be reintroduced, but rather that the way classical music is presented now is outdated and doesn't seem to have a long life.
7 Break open the system
Who should make the choices about grants and institutions? Interesting point. Now that choosing is done by peers and experts. That system is not wrong in itself, but in practice it is dominated by advisers who (because of the Administration Act) have to be outside the profession, who, moreover, are usually at least middle-aged, mostly belong to the traditional arts and are of the white race. The assessment system is too shielded. All explainable, but unsustainable in the long run. We could start supplementing the judging system with models suggested by David Van Reybrouck: involve engaged citizens in juries and social media.
Our subsidy system, while flexible in design, is stagnant and static in practice. Flexibility is desirable, given cross-connections that artists and cultural institutions make, across disciplines and sectors. Collaboration should be rewarded.
The Council for Culture recently described the situation in culture as a building that still looks good on the outside, but from which you cannot see the state of its foundations. The Netherlands has a rich artistic life, but the foundations are under serious pressure. This is worrying because the arts (including cultural heritage) form the spiritual infrastructure of our society.
The future is not fixed, we can influence it.
Previously published in NRC.
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In his diptych on the state of Dutch art policy, Melle Daamen, following the statements he made in NRC Handelsblad in December 2013, again argues for delay. For Daamen, innovation in the arts should be secondary to depth and craftsmanship. That he spoke earlier about slowing down art policy, the system that makes our cultural life possible, appealed more to me. Now he still seems hard-pressed to have the patience to let the arts - without too coercive a government - build a new future for themselves. From Daamen, in any case, the dispersal policy needs a shake-up. For him, arts policy is still too focused on the region, while today's artists see the world as their playing field from the big city in which they work. Here he all too easily ties two topics together: the urbanisation of culture and the issue of the regional distribution of cultural resources.
The concept of spreading itself is actually out of date. It conjures up an image of art having to be 'spread' from Amsterdam across the rest of the country, so to speak. That art especially flourishes in an urban environment and that culture can make a city really attractive has been known for years. This was also established in the recent Culture Council's Culture Outlook. But whereas the Council looks at the entire country and sees how cities develop their own cultural character and increasingly profile themselves, Daamen's field of vision is limited to the Randstad. Perhaps he does not leave home often enough to see how cities like Groningen or regions like Eindhoven/Brabantstad have developed a distinctive cultural climate that can at least match cities like The Hague or Almere.
Moreover, Daamen's view of the dispersal policy is severely outdated. This "traditional policy" would envisage that all cultural facilities should be just about everywhere. This is increasingly less true. Only five years ago, cultural policy was drastically reformed by introducing a national basic cultural infrastructure. As a result, there is now a theatre or youth theatre company in eight Dutch cities, for example. Mind you - four of those eight places are in the Randstad. Then the previous cabinet slashed cultural policy yet again with unprecedentedly severe cuts, and the basic infrastructure became even more 'basic'. In the dance sector, for instance, only four companies remain - one of which is outside the Randstad. The impoverishment is especially noticeable there. The few institutions left in 'regional cities' have been hit hard by the cuts and lovers of art and culture have to travel further and further to see or listen to something.
Consequently, the policy is not strongly regionalised at all, but has been highly centralised in recent years. Perhaps Daamen is not aware of it, but some 40% of the cultural money that all Dutch people together raise goes to Amsterdam, while a (admittedly much smaller) city like Maastricht has to make do with some 2%. Of course, there does not have to be an orchestra or dance theatre everywhere, and a blueprint from The Hague does not do justice to the different urban developments throughout the country. But distribute resources fairly, so that as many Dutch people as possible, wherever they live, have access to arts and culture, whichever.
In France, there has been a reverse trend in recent decades and cities like Lille and Marseille have been able to develop, where traditionally only Paris was mentioned on the cultural map. In the Netherlands, let us have an eye for all cities where art and culture are of indispensable value.
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