In the last few days, tentative proposals for a new system to fund the arts in the Netherlands have been appearing in various places. Tricky pieces, and so far not attesting to very much incisiveness. In The Parool a number of prominent figures, including Tinkebel and advertising man Kessels, believe that there should be less pigeonholing, and that in addition to quality, we should start looking at significance when determining eligibility for subsidies.
'Honouring plans made before the corona crisis now creates a big backlog. Those who want to move forward, those who want to change, choose now to first sharply analyse, listen and watch. That means only then giving free rein to new plans, new institutions and new opportunities. In doing so, we do not give room to the process, but to the much-needed change of culture. Advice from the past is no guarantee for the future.' It is a repetition of a message which previously caused some discussion on Culture Press.
Hybrid
At Theatre newspaper contains a plea for a simple three-way split. Sally Mometti, an artist retrained as an MBA, also argues that the straitjacket is too tight. According to the essayist, the subsidiser judges everyone too much by the same yardstick. She argues for a distinction between, artistic, hybrid (artistic/commercial) and commercial art, with different requirements as well:
'The starting point for a new subsidy system should be unconditional support for a large number of artistic productions and a substantial proportion of hybrid productions. The government benefits from not lumping artistic and hybrid productions together, but recognising the distinction and therefore differentiating the measurement tools by which one is judged. Here, the proposal is that for artistic productions, qualitative measurement tools monitor artistic value and all quantitative indicators are abandoned. For hybrid productions, a combination of quantitative and qualitative measuring instruments is conceivable, which together make a judgement on whether or not the central government awards a subsidy every four years.'
Quite a complicated proposition, because how do you measure quality, and what is actually hybrid? Should someone who wants to fall under 'artistic' (and what art student doesn't) not be allowed to make money at all? Mometti recognises the consequence of this split: 'The hybrid bin is big, with a lot of competition, and so in this category one has to find ways to merge purpose and profit in a sustainable way in order to stand out, both from the competition and towards the grantee.'
Apart from the award for most MBA buzzwords in a single sentence, Mometti also wins the medal of honour for presenting the reformulation of a problem as the solution to that problem. After all: art practice across the board is mostly hybrid.
Stick horse
So something else is needed, and now I can get back to this place my old hobbyhorse and once again fiercely defend that we should get rid of the Hague-Amsterdam primacy in subsidy determination, but let me approach it differently. When artists or art policymakers devise a system to fund the making and presentation of art, they think from production.
That is the old elevationist ideal: we must produce something of value, regardless of popular demand, so that the population has the choice to eat the healthy food too, alongside the unhealthy bulk of snack bar Jopie and McDondalds. We have that healthy choice produced centrally in the Randstad and then drive out across the country. Whereby we leave the serving to places where the local government has set up tables and chairs.
Currently, 13% of the offerings in our theatres can be counted as healthy and good food, so we are nowhere near the disc of five with our arts offerings in the region.
Albert Heijn
That thinking from supply no longer fits in these times, when the very haute cuisine together with the boom in local beer brewers - to keep the analogy with food - paved the way for more local profiling among the big-box retailers. No Albert Heijn can avoid advertising regional products anymore. Because that sells, that creates a bond, and that is good for everyone.
So what has grown in the food sector purely out of commercial interest should serve as an example to the arts sector. Why can't we make producing and presenting art, especially performing art, local? The Council for Culture did in his very first advice for the new arts plan a brave move, but is apparently so adamant rebuffed that all subsequent opinions were so loudly silent about it that it was hurt the ears.
As a result, all kinds of regions produced a regional profile totally in vain. In the final opinion, two years later, we only kept the end of Scapino about it. After all, that had to fall because Groningen also had a cool dance company.
Fear of populism
In recent years, I have talked to many people about that local focus of a new subsidy system. In those conversations, almost everyone agreed with me, but added in the same sentence that of course it was never going to work. 'And the PVV/FvD, of course!'
Especially this fear of the populists is well within the art sector. You can hardly deny that North Brabant a bugbear for everyone is. Who then dares to hand over art policy for potentially elite, vulnerable - and developmental - art to the vagaries of a populist provincial government?
Yet I also see something positive in the Brabant development. The populists who follow their national list leader in shouting about canals and white wine are running into very different people in their own neighbourhood. Then suddenly it is your neighbours, your children's school, the village hall and the local library that you come up against. Then you can't hide behind national policies, you have to bare your bottom locally.
German model
When Halbe Zijlstra promulgated his disastrous policy, he gave local governments a free pass to cut back on art too, because "order from on high. Were we to opt for a 'German' model, where central government focuses mainly on heritage and national values, while art is produced, consumed and, where necessary, subsidised locally and regionally, the risk that an aloof populist in The Hague could wreak havoc in Enschede is a lot smaller. That a radical in Enschede will damage art in Groningen is not to be expected. Quite apart from the fact that that Enschede radical will not want to upset his own neighbours.
It is precisely the shaky performance of the Culture Council, and the unhealthy influence that private, commercial interests seem to have on its advice, make it necessary to limit the power of that Council and the central funds. So divide the money for culture earmarked and in proportion to population composition among urban regions and provinces and let them decide together what to do with music, theatre, visual arts and education. Make makers settle back in the cities where they meet their audiences in the pubs and AH.
'Picking up' stories?
If we limit it to theatres for a moment: about ten urban regions in the Netherlands are ripe for a producing city theatre. Besides the four big cities in the Randstad, they are Arnhem-Nijmegen, Brabantstad, Zeeland, South Limburg (Maastricht/Parkstad), Twente and Groningen. These are regions that have enough audience, and a pleasant business climate for makers. With a broad programming and production remit, a city theatre can put together a programme in which vulnerable, commercial and educational art find a place. Indeed, in youth theatre, this already works fantastically well. Perhaps cross-pollination is even possible and local public successes can be used for additional investment in experiments.
The makers know the place, sense their audience and know what stories are going on. This also benefits large commercial producers, who then find a much more loyal audience in regional theatres than they do now. And they don't have to, like the very suburbanised new musical producer Musicalmakers now announces, to collect stories twice a year, then turn them into musicals in and for the periphery.
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