4 reasons why 'cultural entrepreneurship' and subsidy don't mix.

Afterwards, it actually dawned on me what had gone wrong at No Man's Land. The event, a sort of combination of networking drinks, symposium and mega workshop was set up from the best of intentions. Initiative of The Cooperative, the club not to be confused with The Cooperative. The latter De Coöperatie is based in Amsterdam and is a collaboration of freelance journalists. Utrecht's De Coöperatie is a collaboration to support pop and urban culture. They are located in Kytopia.

Professional Shit

With that out of the world: what went wrong? There were people who make money supporting culture going around explaining to people who want to make a living from making art how you do it. Apart from the fact that the explainers and sellers earn on average twice as much as the creators, things got a bit weird in the end. Because the explainers pretty much put the ball in the artists' court. From the proposition that their power is only limited, it increasingly came to mean that they could actually do little as long as those artists did nothing.

I had all sorts of angry thoughts afterwards, but that won't get us anywhere. Let me use my anger creatively and use three conclusions of the day to tell where the problems lie and their solution can be found. I do so empowered by Lucas De Man, who managed to shake up the room with his keynote and called on everyone to 'professionally shit'. The elaboration follows below.

1: 'Those who want to make money from their passion must work hard.'

'Anyone who wants to make a living from art has to work hard. So too you, artist. Not just making what you think you should make, but looking for money, audiences, partners, sponsors and funds. In any order.' Says the lady from Culture+Enterprise.

This, of course, is nonsense. Hard work has never made anyone successful. Nobody wants to look up to someone who works his ass off. At best, people look pityingly at artists who work their asses off for a paltry handout. The CEO of that big company that you will never, ever do a sponsorship deal with because you are working so hard did not work that hard at all to get where he got. That CEO got there because others were very happy to work for him. And rock hard too. In the sweat of their faces.

So did the CEO reach that status all by himself? Without any hard work? Indeed. But not without working. The CEO knew when to work. He did timing. And he also knew when an opportunity came along. He could see that because he was not hard at work all day. With that, he commanded admiration. And so others started trying their best for him. Work themselves to the bone for him.

Dear toiling artist: be that CEO.

2: 'Businesses are lining up to sponsor art.'

'The will is there. It is just difficult to make a match because no suitable artists come with offers.' Says The Fundraiser.

This, of course, is also nonsense. Companies are of course willing to work with an artist if the artist can do something for them. Companies, and I mean the average companies, will never invest money in an artist because they didn't have anything better to do with their money. Whereas as an artist, you are trained not to care about others. The Netherlands has even built an entire subsidy system to prevent you from having to make concessions. You are not trained and not put into the world to be useful to a company. Issue here is that companies are not trained to be useful to artists either.

That there is a match between you and any company is almost impossible. Don't focus on companies. Focus on people. Sometimes they have a company.

3: 'Be cooperative'

'Stop being pathetic, be entrepreneurial, and be cooperative. That's what we do. And together we can do great things.' Says the gentleman from the bank.

This is also nonsense. Sure, a bank can sponsor culture. This bank does so energetically. Entire theatres have been named after the bank. But this bank had also commissioned a very nice gallery in its brand-new headquarters, of almost Berlin proportions. That gallery closed down very quickly at a time when art was not very well publicised. Something about pickpocketing, elitism, leftist hobbies. So the bank quit that gallery, almost faster than they quit cycling sponsorship when wrong drug use came to light there.

The bank is cooperative. Because it is itself a cooperative. You have to take a very close look at that, because cooperative goes on equal footing and equality. Do you have a shared interest with the bank? Is the bank but listening to you?

4: Cultural Entrepreneurship is Nonsense

Cultural entrepreneurship assumes that the arts as we know and cherish them lend themselves to an entrepreneurial approach. But what is an entrepreneurial approach? An entrepreneur responds to a market demand. He offers an answer to that demand that is deemed so valuable by the demander that the entrepreneur can make a profit by selling that answer. A supermarket will try to be as complete or, conversely, as cheap as possible, a car brand as exclusive or, conversely, as ordinary as possible.

An entrepreneur fights competitors out of the market and does not shy away from any means, right down to cheating.

This all has very little to do with art as we know it. The art we know operates in a market in which the government is the main customer. The public plays no role whatsoever in the subsidised-art system, even if you have to meet targets. The only audience that is really vital to the subsidised artist is the committee members of the advisory committees.

With only one customer - the government - the arts sector has it easy, as long as the customer has enough money. Now that that customer has run out of money, competition arises. On price. That is the most damaging competition imaginable. With an empty wallet, the customer plays art providers against each other and then sits on the couch with chips and coke watching the carnage.

This is not a nice situation. Retrieved from No Man's Land I was in the middle of it.