IN PERSPECTIVE 8: Does the last artist want to turn out the lights?

In the series In Perspective, Erik Akkermans looks back and ahead at developments in cultural policy and practice. Today: artists' interests.

Above the children's circus

The ground floor of the building on Passeerdersgracht in Amsterdam was home to children's circus Elleboog. On the second floor were the chess associations: the national association and Max Euwe's international federation FIDE, which you sometimes found in person at the photocopier we shared. All the way upstairs housed the NVV artists' organisation. The first floor was for the Federation of Artists' Associations. Pinned to the inside of the front door was a note: "Will the last artist please turn off the lights?" It was meant more literally than symbolically, but not without a quip.

On a cold February day, I went to work at the Federation as a squeaky-clean director (pardon... in the spirit of the times as 'co-ordinator'), at the same time as new cultural policy officer Cas Smithuysen. We walked together to the key service and to Winters Brothers for the first stationery at our new workplace. The job was a gamble. When we came to sign the employment contract a few months earlier, the treasurer said the Federation might go bankrupt. We took our chances and managed to avoid bankruptcy. However, a fire did break out in the building after three weeks and everything got covered in a greasy layer of rubber, ash and firewater. Three months later, the largest contributor to contributions, upstairs neighbour artist organisation NVV, angrily quit. That fire could not be put out.

Artist resistance

The Federation of Artists' Associations had put out more fires and weathered storms, though. This association of associations, of writers and performing tone artists, of sculptors and composers, of film makers and graphic designers, had its origins in the artists' resistance in '40-'45. Willem Sandberg and Gerrit van der Veen were some of the forerunners¹. Jan Kassies, later director and chairman also shared this resistance past.

After the war, the Federation became the well-heard voice of the organised artists' world, especially in political The Hague. It negotiated a separate research and documentation centre - which became the Boekman Foundation - and an advisory body for the central government, the Arts Council. In various internal committees, artists discussed the desired art policy, which was then brought out by the federation office.² In the Federation Council, all associations had an equal voice and gave mandate to a board. As a member lure, there was an in-house Federation card that gave rights to admission to museums, various discounts and priority at the Holland Festival.

That leading artists were active within the Federation gave additional authority, internally, but certainly also with politicians. It was not unusual for ministers like van Doorn or Gardeniers to visit the Federation in Amsterdam rather than the other way round. A large official staff came along. Consultations were casual. Relations with members of parliament were cordial, including at the hearings of the standing parliamentary committee. The positive mood of the 1960s and the atmosphere surrounding the Den Uyl Cabinet in the 1970s had not completely disappeared.

Over the years, the organisation had solid chairmen such as designer Jurriaan Schrofer, filmmaker Digna Sinke and theatre producer Cox Habbema. Artists like Hanny Michaelis, Reinbert de Leeuw, Micha Mengelberg or Jan Sierhuis, in my time, actively interfered in formulating positions. The Federation was also allowed to make appointments to the NOS board, programme coordination committee and other bodies at public broadcasting. In this way, the voice of the arts field was also heard there.

Position statement

Those views of the Federation of Artists' Associations were mainly about art policy and cultural politics. The Federation was not a union; direct advocacy lay with the individual unions. Of course, good art policy included artist policy, and it sometimes dealt with issues such as copyright, fees or loan fees. But the focus was more on the setting up of art funds and on the stream of policy papers that had been launched since Minister Engels: a general culture note and notes on theatre, visual arts and music policy, among others.³

The Federation insisted that, on the contrary, it looked beyond immediate individual artist interests. This was not always without tension. In music policy, for instance, where space for disadvantaged music genres - chamber music, jazz and improvised music, pop music - was advocated if necessary at the expense of the number of orchestras and orchestral musicians. Or with the visual arts policy where, in the late 1970s, quality and selection were contrasted with egalitarian BKR policy and the motto of the visual artists' union BBK that anyone could be an artist. The Federation also called attention to (relatively) new members such as training theatre, youth theatre or video art.

Politically and publicly, the Federation of Artists' Associations managed to score well. But 'backstage' things were often difficult. My later successors, such as Ryclef Rienstra or Jack Verduyn Lunel, for example, had to deal with a lot of internal conflicts and with members threatening to quit. But my predecessors and I had no less.⁴ These are the familiar problems for this type of organisation. How far can the leadership get ahead of the troops? How to deal with competing interests? Do you offer enough value against the dues of often-poor members? How do you coordinate work among yourselves so as not to duplicate things and get in each other's way?

One more party

In 1996, the Federation of Artists' Associations was still able to celebrate its 50th anniversary. This took place in The Galaxy in the presence of Queen Beatrix, whose grandmother Wilhelmina had been a member of an affiliated visual artists' association. ⁵

But when politics in The Hague increasingly contrasted art and artists' policies and budget cuts dominated, it became increasingly difficult to maintain unity. The last federation director clumsily juggled different operating companies, lost contact with part of the supporters and eventually let the Federation of Artists' Associations slip into oblivion.

Meanwhile, Kunsten '92 had taken its place as an increasingly prominent forum for formulating positions on arts policy and political lobbying on behalf of the arts community. This was a positive development, but it did become increasingly difficult - in my own experience - to get clear about who was taking the lead on behalf of whom and on what. The trade unions, the professional organisations, the employers' federation, the branch organisations and the interests of artists (employees, self-employed, sometimes employers), the arts field, the public, institutions, employers. I did not always find it easy to explain the playing field at home. More on that perhaps next time.

The field of artists' organisations and unions fell further apart. Some of them, such as the professional association for designers BNO, for example, continued to develop firmly and autonomously. Others merged or ceased to exist. The largest artists' union, affiliated to the NVV, later FNV, went through a series of transformations, mergers and detachments. Via the penultimate station FNV KIEM, it came to the present Kunstenbond. Which not long ago initiated the Creative Coalition as a stand-alone alliance of associations for creative self-employed workers. In that pair, Kunstenbond and Creatieve Coalitie, there is part of the legacy of the Federation of Artists' Associations. (Another part at Kunsten92 and the Academy of Arts).

Willem Sandberg and Jan Kassies were icons I admired. That Sandberg, at an advanced age, was still willing to design my first Federation annual report filled me with great pride. That Jan Kassies occasionally poked his head around the corner with great interest in how we were doing, I experienced as an encouragement. Both would now look at Arts Federation and Creative Coalition with sympathy. They would admire the efforts of these organisations to focus on the interests of independent artists during the corona crisis. They would be outraged at the eventual political response to it.

"Does the last artist want to turn off the lights? "could have been a good slogan during the corona crisis. And if it wasn't so cynical it would be so even after corona. is still the tough but urgent task for artists' organisations to conduct - unity in diversity - a strong and unified advocacy for artists.