The lobby has made art just a little too big. Now populism is reaping the benefits of that.

Naturally, I stand speechless along the sidelines watching Dutch art get hit by a 'perfect storm'. Two, maybe three deep depressions crossing each other at the worst possible moment, creating a surge that sinks even the strongest ships. In this case: an extremely weak minister, a cultural sector divided to the bone and a political climate where populism has the wind in its sails. All it took was for a pandemic to fly in.

In Brabant, the first waves hit the dyke. Afraid of pig farming terror, the old KVP politicians chose to flee to the far right. Now they are in the arms of a party whose leader has mastered playing the dog whistle to perfection. His supposedly loose shots and ironic remarks hit target in North Brabant: cultural institutions that the province could be proud of, such as festivals Boulevard and Cement or a dance centre like De Stilte perished within a year. The provincial orchestra, darling of the CDA, will most likely be saved. The population will not revolt, as necessity breaks law and the farmers do not have it easy either.

Alms

What is happening in Brabant is not isolated. Not every region will have it as bad as the south, but divisiveness - FvD's sole life goal - will emerge elsewhere too. Subsidised culture will survive there with difficulty, the unsubsidised arts only insofar as they are allowed to keep doing it by handouts and local rich entrepreneurs. Or the masses. When inflation kicks in, and it will start with the rising prices of beers on a one-and-a-half-metre terrace and tickets to one-and-a-half-metre museums and exclusive one-and-a-half-metre concerts, the arts will go back to being free by and for enthusiasts, and exclusive and high-quality for the very rich.

Everyone who cares about the arts is powerless. The minister is not taken seriously by her colleagues in the cabinet, and the lobby discredits itself by presenting the cultural world in the media as bigger and more important than it is.

Mouth organ

I heard the number of people employed in the sector grew from the realistic 50,000 to 100,000 and even to 300,000, the economic contribution from 1 billion to 4 billion, to, state last week: 11 billion euros, and the share in the economy from 2 to 4 to soon probably 10 per cent. This juggling of numbers does the matter no favours. First because numbers don't really impress, because too abstract, and then because they are so puncturable. Suddenly, advertisers are also artists, suddenly someone playing the harmonica on a street corner is on a par with the first violinist of the Concertgebouw Orchestra.

The cultural lobby has been in what the English call a "cry for culture" and the "march of civilisation" since the "cry for culture" and the "march of civilisation". 'tantrum' mention: angry, resentful, and above all lonely whining and droning, unapproachable and scared to death of critical comments, as this story will not thank me either.

But that loneliness is the problem, of course. That loneliness has been created by the deteriorating relationship between subsidising politics and the inquiring sector for decades. Things don't click and that plays out every four years, in front of an audience of ordinary newspaper readers and news viewers for whom it is all increasingly abacadabra.

Achterhoek castle farm

Also comes because the difference between have's and have nots has only got bigger since the last waves of austerity. Management is often on a roll, especially when compared to the artistic foot soldiers who stand around playing the money together for less than minimum wage. While at the same time, we see people who have achieved star status hanging out in their hard-earned Achterhoek castle farmhouse with shit on their hands, haunted by the tabloid press.

What is worth subsidy, and what is not? Is all art worth money, what actually is our culture? Should the people be elevated if they don't want to be elevated? Subsidies are less and less explainable, and partly that ensures that in times of corona there is a loud and clear 'shut the fuck up' sounds from sadly ever-wider strata of the population.

Of course, no one wants the theatre to close. People from Zuilen Noord who think TivoliVredenburg might as well fall over are not many. But neither will they give their lives for the survival of a museum.

Concord

Art is valuable, but not more important than anything else. So the wheel needs to change in the lobby. No more thinking big, please. Think as small as possible. Art is 3 minutes of emotion in a piece of music, 30 seconds of shock in a museum. Art is a single raunchy phrase on a stage, a consonance in a choral performance. The Tristan chord. Art is the inspiration on which a very broad popular culture floats. Art is ambition worth investing in.

Art is a niche. A minority. Top sport. Art is also somewhat exclusive, as is true of anything of value. So art is not for everyone, so art should also not expect everyone to stick up for it when things are tough economically or politically. Art is, however, that one dwarf marmot that can stop the construction of a motorway because it is the last of its kind and moving it will be deadly.

Priceless

The cultural sector lobby has made itself too big. If the lobby is to be believed, the whole country is now full of dwarf marmots. Then you are not rare anymore. That makes eradication more likely, because people might even be bothered by all those squeaky dwarf marmots in their kitchens.

While the reality is indeed that of the fragile, and very rare dwarf marmot. Art is constantly on the verge of toppling over. That is its raison d'être. Art needs investment to continue to exist because it is an important minority that any self-respecting society should protect. Societies have been doing that since they were called societies. Because you have to have something to look up to. Just like a languishing airline that has no chance in the global economy. Or a bulb grower with an oversized family. Or a dwarf marmot. So it's not about money, it's about respect.

Let's leave pretending to be bigger than you are to the Farmers Diefens Fors with their tractor. Which, of course, is just compensation. For something very skimpy midget-like.