Culture funds want slow renewal. But it is far too late for that.

On 11 April 2019, the Council for Culture the shovel in the dykes of the polder that is the Dutch cultural system. After all, the basic infrastructure, established in 2009 to finally bake renewal and flow into the system, is dead. The structure carefully conceived over years has been turned into a ruin by 10 years of cultural policy in which the VVD was dominant. The patchwork by ministers on the left, MPs with their own agenda and a cultural lobby that bites its own tail more often than is good has only made things worse.

A few days after 11 April (four-eleven for our overseas friends), the joint cultural funds (a unique one) came up with one response which on the one hand was to be expected, but on the other was actually very strange. Indeed, the funds felt that what the Council proposed was far too radical. Renewal, they argued, had to be put into a lower gear. With this, to complete the metaphor sketched above, the funds embarked on a dyke reinforcement project around the same cultural polder.

Monstrous

Decision-makers in the cultural sector have never been as diametrically opposed as they are now, I want to say. To put it bluntly, the Council advocates a return to the pre-1986 system. Back then, the De Boer Commission report separated local, regional and national funding into presentation, education and production, respectively.

The monstrous consequences are still being felt. Not only do the three tiers of government work badly together, in the field the parties are completely opposed to each other. Theatres don't really care what subsidised offerings have been devised for them next, cultural education is a stepchild of provinces and creators have lost touch with audiences outside their home town.

On edge

The 2009 basic infrastructure kept the boundary between production of art and its presentation to a (regional) audience tightly sealed. Funds - which were now tasked with ensuring innovation and flow - were there for the makers, not their customers. So culturally emancipating cities now complain about the lack of alignment between what their (culturally interested) population wants, and what is delivered centrally by the funds.

When the VVD blew up the whole building by largely withdrawing subsidies, things came to a head. Previously secure 'functions' were thrown out of the permanent subsidy and put on the plate of the funds, which had more mouths to feed with less money.

Wolves

The funds subsequently did not want a fairytale solutionwhich would have consisted of sending some of the cubs into the wolf forest to get lost, but decided to maintain as much as possible. The Performing Arts Fund, the largest cultural fund, also built in production pressure: subsidy was calculated for the number of performances you managed to sell to - increasingly unwilling - regional theatres, regardless of the number of productions you released. Theoretically, it was possible to release 40 different one-off productions in a year, each of which you showed at a different venue.

That no one has such inexhaustible creativity is obvious. That interested audiences stop following every new offering at some point, logical. That it additionally led to burn-outs among creators, to structural underpayment of artists and employees in and out of employment, a bad side effect.

Priorities

So that everything has to change has been clear for some time. That not everyone on the employer and employee side is waiting for this, too. But muddling on with only marginal adjustments, as the funds are now proposing, is disastrous.

That makes the funds' letter wry. Above all, it makes it clear that they have been busier in recent years lobbying against drastic innovations than thinking about successful alternatives. That has turned out to be very precious time, now that the Council, despite the restrictions imposed by the lobby (no change in money flows between the state, province and municipalities) is still pushing through a necessary system overhaul.

That the Council thereby actually turns back the clock 35 years sounds dramatic, but is conceivable. Indeed, one could also argue that the ambitions, with which the various system changes were initiated, were perhaps too great. The aim was always to enable innovation and flow. Practice always showed that when that renewal and circulation were forced, the conservation lobby was stronger. But even more so, perhaps, offering the prospect of renewal and circulation by setting up a whole fund structure for it is counterproductive.

Undeliverable promise

After all, now that innovation and advancement on the maker side actually seemed possible, it was also propagated everywhere. Young makers were given hope, and also the chance to realise their dreams. Only they ran into something. Something that is not the responsibility of the funds: empty venues and galleries, a little review on a specialist site. Although those are also heavily subsidised by the funds. But surely the fate of a lot of fund art is oblivion, provincial hatred and burnout. Not necessarily in that order.

The system proposed by the Council would lead to rigidity, according to the funds. That rigidity is very possible, even if you no longer speak of 'facilities', as in the 1975s, but of 'chain institutions'. Surely, the problem also lies a bit in the separate money flows for the arts. Why not the regional structure proposed by the Council in an earlier phase? Why not put money for production and presentation in the hands of those places where art matters: in the urban regions?

The Netherlands has well-developed regions, not just underdeveloped, low-headed neanderthals. Because that is how some artists and subsidisers do react when you advocate greater input from the urban population. As if then only McDonalds will become the norm. Let's stop labelling the area east of the A30 as a cultural development country. The Council is making a valiant effort, now follow through. Give cultural policy back to culture.

Just open the floodgates.