Good that the Amsterdam Arts Council wants to invest in culture, but more is needed.

One of the Arts Council's more interesting but also consistently under-reported conclusions is that Amsterdam spends the least on Arts & Culture relative to the other three major cities. It calls for 25% increase in the budget in the coming administrative period. This is partly so that the scale leap from a regular city to a metropolis can be realised in this area. This assumes a Metropolis with multiple cultural centres, also to reduce congestion in the city centre.

Investing extra

Importantly, the Arts Council stresses that the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area is not the same as the Amsterdam Metropolitan Region, the administrative monstrosity in which 33 municipalities, two provinces and a transport region work together. Nothing good for Arts & Culture would come out of that, it rightly argues. It then argues that the Municipality should follow the recovery of budgets from the State. This is a painful one since Amsterdam has already fully reversed its 2010 cut in 2014, although not with indexation, and that the State is only increasing from 2018 and only very limitedly reversing the 2011 cuts. So it is not the Municipality but the State that should be given the somewhat punitive treatment here. That does not make the message any less important, by the way. With the upcoming jump in scale, Amsterdam needs to invest extra in culture of and for the city.

Fair Practice

First, introduction of the Fair Practice Code for creators. In itself, it is right to draw attention to the poor financial position of creators. However, the problem is far too complex to be solved just by instituting a code for institutions. The idea is that institutions should pay creators better, along the lines of the CAO or Directive of the specific sector. The disadvantage, however, is that institutions lack the budgets to do so, and even within the institutions, everyone is slowly going out on a limb.

On top of this, the problem is also different for different creators. The performing arts mostly work with 'partages' or sometimes even 'buy-outs'. In the visual arts, 'hanging money' is common. At least, if you are lucky and are not told it is good for your career if you make your work available (for free) for an exhibition. The guilty party here is also the central government, which for years was actually responsible for the makers where the municipality was responsible for the buildings.

Unjustified

With the 2011 cuts, the central government actually (wrongly) transferred part of that task to the municipalities, which are now left with the burden. Not to mention the removal of the production house function by the central government in 2008. It would therefore be a route downhill if actual institutions were forced to be open only for fewer days. Or organise fewer performances or exhibitions, as the Arts Council, among others, suggests, in order to pay for the Fair Practice Code.

Especially if there is a risk of being punished again down the line, because 'people do less anyway'. Truly valuing workers (not just makers) in the cultural sector at acceptable levels costs much more than the Arts Council's now proposed budget increase of 25%, however good it sounds. This is about repairing years of structural underpayment.

From the heart

The plea for Arts & Culture to share in the benefits of the city's spatial development, which they helped drive, is from my heart. It is good to preserve cultural properties that are in municipal ownership through permanent cultural zoning. A stop to the sale of these properties and a continuous lower rent is even more important. This requires that the management of the properties also be fully in the hands of the Arts & Culture Department at the municipality. Call it back to basics. But it is about more.

Cultural institutions should be able to benefit from profit development in urban renewal areas. After all, that is where the real money is. Until now, all that money has gone to developers and landowners, who often buy strategically. One example is US property developer Hines. That investor has bought strategic position with the Hammer Quarter. Its sole aim is to milk the land in the now near future by building skyscrapers. Here, incorporating cultural and social functions for the longer term will prove much more difficult.

Smooth ice

On diversity, the Arts Council is treading on thin ice. It specifically names institutions that, apparently according to the Arts Council, have had their subsidies cut unfairly. In doing so, it steps into the field of the advisory competence of the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, without giving any consideration to why the cut was made. This is not only short-sighted, it is downright questionable.

The suggestion that commercial cultural expressions are at the forefront of diversity policies compared to subsidised institutions seems totally off the mark and in any case is not substantiated. A typical case of underbelly that has no place in an Arts Council opinion. That cultural diversity in schools is contrasted with the existing situation and a single measure of the new cabinet tends towards opportunism. Certainly when it comes to music education, there is high commitment to diversity with structural support for the Leerorkest. That operates exclusively in 'disadvantaged neighbourhoods'. The Aslan Music Centre, next to the Amsterdam Music School, also has a diverse offering. The Arts Council could also have endorsed that in its advice.

North

That the Arts Council is calling for investment in cultural infrastructure is good. Of course, one can argue about where exactly that should happen and on what scale. The Arts Council mentions interventions in the existing infrastructure of East, South, South-East and West, but should also consider the cultural and social infrastructure in newly developing areas like Port City and Eastern North.

Arts Council chairman Rottenberg is a strong advocate for Amsterdam's Arts & Culture sector, but on one point he seems to be missing the message. He embraces the 100-day approach of Veem House for performance as a good solution in the face of limited subsidies. But surely we should see that action mainly as a statement. Director Anne Breure and the hairs are mainly saying that things can no longer go on like this. That if you are not prepared to make funds available for vulnerable artistic expressions, you simply get less. And that we should also resist that. Rottenberg in particular, given his further plea, should be able to read this line of reasoning. His reasoning opens the way for more cuts and less supply in the future. Something he otherwise seems to advocate precisely not.

But that the council will need to invest extra in the city's cultural infrastructure, both incidentally and structurally, especially with the city's future growth increasingly in sight, is beyond doubt. On that point, therefore, the Arts Council's advice deserves full support.