Culture Council advisory committee chairman steps down: 'Nobody checks state museums anymore'

Wim Hupperetz, director of Amsterdam's Allard Pierson, has resigned his position as chairman of the museums and heritage advisory committee to the Council for Culture. In protest, he says, against the irresponsible way in which the minister is now implementing the Culture Council's advice. 'If this continues, we will soon be giving millions of euros to a few museums, without ever asking them what they are actually doing with it.'

Hupperetz is referring to the measure that the minister, Ingrid van Engelshoven, already announced in December 2018 announced. The minister then stated that national museums would henceforth be funded through the Heritage Act. With that, they now fall, appears from the principles paper published a fortnight ago, also outside the control and monitoring that does apply to institutions subsidised through the Culture Council.

Unequal playing field

'So far, I have acted nicely within the Council as an advisor, but now I am allowed to have my own opinion about it,' Hupperetz states. 'I see a number of things happening that remain below the surface. They are technical things: it comes down to an uneven playing field within basic cultural infrastructure.'

The technical story is that subsidy through the basic cultural infrastructure has all kinds of external control mechanisms attached to it, and subsidy through the Heritage Act much less so, says Hupperetz: 'That Heritage Act is there to prevent things from being called into question every four years that don't need to be called into question. That's good, only now there has been a kind of technocratic demarcation process whereby the distinction between programming [which had to be accounted for, WS.] and collection management has disappeared. The point is that most museums already make so much money themselves, that the share of subsidy, now allocated to the Heritage Act, is a relatively small part of the total. But in absolute numbers, it's a lot.'

Van Gogh

He explains it using what he says is an extreme example: 'The Van Gogh Museum gets over 8 million from the state. To be precise: 1.3 million from the Basic Infrastructure, 609,000 for management and conservation and 6.32 million for the building. That adds up to 8.3 million. A lot of money. In the new situation, they get 6.32 million for the building and 2 million for management and conservation. So that will automatically be moved to the Heritage Act.'

'This is possible because with a budget of 59 million, the museum can easily shift items around. For the museum, this has many advantages, because the Heritage Act is a law, and the extra money now falls under that law. So you don't have to do anything else for that: no applications, but also no accountability.' The director, who also manages the collection of the University of Amsterdam, compares: 'It's a bit like in science the peer review will be abolished.'

But that's strange, isn't it? Doesn't anyone control the money from the Heritage Act? 

'There is a Heritage Inspectorate, but it is hardly able to monitor it properly. So the Culture Council suggested that integrated monitoring be linked to the new situation: not only management, conservation and collection policy, but also public policy. Some museums also asked for this. The Heritage Inspectorate and the Council would do it together. It would have led to better advice.'

It involves taxpayers' money, so it's not that strange, right?

'But that has now been taken off by the minister. That makes the position of the national museums very comfortable. They no longer have to submit plans, they no longer get monitoring, so they can basically do whatever they want. The critical power is now gone. They did say now that they will arrange the visitation themselves. Then there will be a committee, but they are mainly going to evaluate themselves.'

'We of WC Duck...?'

'So far no one is against this, and most people don't see it either, because it is quite technical. The museum association, where those national museums are of course very strongly represented, is all for it. The field is doing its own thingy. In short: this is a creeping process. It creates an uneven playing field, because basically everyone wants this, and critical thinking is eliminated. Just at a time when there is a lot going on in the museum world. Then you shouldn't exempt the 26 state museums, but rather see them as outposts of state policy from OCW. After all, certain tasks can be tackled much more forcefully there. Now we are only looking back [visitation, WS] and we run the great risk that the urgency, for instance when multi-voicedness needs to be put on the agenda [as now with the canon, WS], will diminish.'

Skewing

'The policy is already leading to skewed growth at the moment. The big players are getting bigger, the medium-sized and small museums remain small. That field is still under heavy pressure, they are also measured against all kinds of public outreach goals, which the big museums can achieve much easier thanks to all those advantages. 76 million goes to the Heritage Act for the big national museums, while for all the diversity goals and other requirements of the ministry for the rest of the museum sector, 3 million goes to 12 provincial museums and 1 million is available through the Mondrian Fund. For 400 museums. So what are you talking about?'

2,500 euros per museum?

'I can understand that the museums want this, but for the minister to go along with this, I don't understand. It's not advised either, but most people just haven't seen it.'

What could go wrong?

'It's not like disasters are happening right now. It is a good time, everyone is doing pretty good things. But right now, therefore, you have to take a critical look at how to tackle the challenges that are bound to come again. That's where that outside view is needed.'

186 million: the House has the floor.

Can anything be done about it?

'We can be very angry about that, but the Culture Council is now ready, the advice is done, the minister has formulated her principles. It is now up to the civil servants. And to the politicians. If there are no questions in the House, it will go straight into the Heritage Act. So in total, we are talking about 186 million. And then in 2024 we will hear whether the money for national museums was spent neatly. Without interim monitoring.'

Good to know

On Thursday 27 June, between 17:00 and 22:00, the House of Representatives will deliberate on Minister Van Engelshoven's starting point note. Follow it live.