'Drawing lots for subsidy might be fairer': listen to podcast with Renée Steenbergen and Ellen Hardy

Wijbrand Schaap

Today, anno 2023, at a time when all over the country people are thinking about how to proceed with the arts, we talk to Renée Steenbergen and Ellen Hardy. Two people who have written a book, one a little less thick than the other, about what is wrong with the arts and actually with subsidisation. But perhaps they would do better to tell them so themselves. Renée Steenbergen, you have written The Art of Different.

Renee Steenbergen

... Subtitled: Six proposals for cultural innovation. The trigger, of course, was the corona crisis. And as an investigative journalist, you immediately think: I'm going to follow that. Then you don't know yet that it will take a few years. And what happens then is that a crisis works like a magnifying glass: what was already not going well is magnified. That is, for instance, the shaky income model of institutions, but also the low wages that make the many self-employed in the sector, so those 165,000 cultural workers who work freelance, and also musicians in orchestras, actors, you name it. Also illuminators, people behind the scenes, authors: they were actually immediately out of work and they were hardly supported. They were actually already underpaid. So then you see that the whole system of productivity and growth that we have seen implemented so rigorously, especially since the 2011 cutback, and in which the institutions also participated, we should add, has led to the transfer of those costs downwards: to an army of underpaid people, which is why I speak of a low-wage sector.

You can then observe that, but then I also want to offer perspectives, because we all love art and want the arts to do well. Then I look at the roots of what I call the ecosystem. The two most important roots are creators and education. Without artists, the halls are empty, and without audiences, too, really. So those two, you have to nurture them, you have to cultivate them. That should be allowed to cost something and that has been very much neglected in the last 12 years, especially with that cultural entrepreneurship as the guiding principle. And I propose a number of changes, which I think we will come to later.

Wijbrand Schaap

Yes okay, We'll go into that in detail later. For listeners who don't know you otherwise: you are a journalist and you have also published a few articles on these issues for Culture Press. We spoke at length in the run-up to your book about some tricky issues in the field and you write for NRC.

Renee Steenbergen

Yes, and I am also an art historian and I have a PhD on art collectors in the Netherlands. So I have a scientific side and a journalistic side, hence investigative journalism.

Wijbrand Schaap

Well who also has a PhD is Ellen Hardy. You got your PhD from the University of Maastricht. In law. Who are you and what is your dissertation about?

Ellen Hardy

If you outline me in two words, I was indeed a flutist first. I went to the conservatory after secondary school, so trained as a musician. Then I studied law, and worked for a long time as a lecturer at Maastricht University. During that work, I combined that with an existence as a chamber musician for quite a while. There I ran into a number of things. You start looking through two glasses. In particular, you start looking at your music profession and its organisation through legal glasses.

My final thesis was about the subsidy instrument. That was kind of the trigger to look at government funding of the cultural sector. I discovered pretty quickly that that cultural sector is very subsidy-dependent. And when you use the word subsidy, you're always legally stuck with the government as the opponent. Because it is the government that subsidises. Non-governments cannot subsidise in the legal sense.

When you subsidise, you are in administrative law, which is the law that regulates legal relations between citizens and government. That law offers quite a lot of guarantees to citizens. And so that also means that as a musician you can derive quite a lot of rights from that law. So as soon as you are dealing with subsidies, you are legally in the comfortable corner.

Wijbrand Schaap

Not very many people who get subsidies know that, I guess.

Ellen Hardy

I totally get that. I went to see because I saw that it was chafing. So in itself, administrative law is a pleasant area of law. It is also there to compensate for inequality. To offer that, call it, lonely citizen against that powerful government some compensation after all. That is how that area of law is set up. But the cultural sector benefits little from it.

Gradually I started researching, through various articles, where it lies. Where are the bottlenecks? And eventually that led to a thesis that I indeed defended on 2 March this year entitled The Art of Financing, Financing the Arts. The subtitle is: Legal Bottlenecks in Government Funding of Arts and Culture.

Wijbrand Schaap

You found four sticking points, in the end. Renée Steenbergen has six action points. There really does appear to be a lot wrong.

Ellen Hardy

Yes. Much more than I had initially thought. And I have to say that even among lawyers this thesis has already led to amazement, of, 'gosh, does that sector suffer so much?' And: 'How come it's so chafing and friction?'

The overriding bottleneck is scarcity. You talk about distribution of scarce resources. Then it depends on which distribution procedure you use to distribute those scarce resources. On top of that, in 2018, very strict jurisprudence was created on all kinds of distribution methods of scarce resources. Then you are not only talking about subsidies, but also about permits, for example. So there are many more scarce resources that we as citizens vis-à-vis the government can all suffer from. If only one permit is issued, while there are several applicants, for example.

So the distribution system has been legally very well thought through in recent years, and that is very much in the spotlight. When I put the magnifying glass on that for the most popular cultural subsidies - and you have to think of the BIS subsidies - both on the schemes and on the distribution method, as well as on the role of the Council of Culture. Because it is precisely in the distribution of cultural subsidies that experts are called in to assess the applications. And there I have also seen some bottlenecks.

So my pile of sticking points got bigger and bigger over the years. And if you then look at the spectacles I put on, that point is one: the scarcity of the funds to be distributed; two: then becomes the distribution methods; Three you can say: the rules that are written for that purpose and part of those rules may be written by the grant makers themselves, because they write out in more detail what criteria you have to meet and and and what all happens during that distribution procedure. And four - last but definitely not least: the experts. I see a lot of problems with that too.

Wijbrand Schaap

You mentioned an example of another situation where the independence of experts was in question. That was about a case that has also been covered on this site: the mother who granted a subsidy to her son, who had a private limited company and yet applied for a subsidy. That then had to be rectified. This plays out in Brabant, which again has certain large families in lots of places.

Ellen Hardy

What happened there was that the apportionment procedure was completed, and legally the successful applicants are then entitled to the grant amount awarded to them. But those rejected then started litigating. Then the whole decision was rejected and that has to do with the fact that distribution was done through a tender. In tenders, you get inter-comparison: then applicants are ranked and the budget was definitely not enough. I think it was something like 68 in total who applied for that round and there was money for half. The rejected institutions just below that cut line objected and appealed. Then it became clear very quickly that something was not right with the expert committee: that there was a conflict of interest in it, among other things. But there had also been far too little regard for the procedure the experts had followed.

How transparent are you? Did you have your consultation meetings minuted? So there was more to it than just that family relationship. So it soon became apparent, that this could not pass muster. What happens then? Then basically all the decisions fall down, but legally you are not going to challenge those approved applications. That is not allowed. A whole budget had actually already been distributed. They all hung out the flag and could go on with their productions and implement their plans that had been honoured. But the 38 rejected ones? I understand that the province struggled quite a bit with that. I only got it from the newspaper too, but in the end they set up a new advisory committee. Completely new. That reviewed all the applications and they came to a completely different ranking. Not 100% different, but still substantially different. Too much so. Then you also see, how subjective that is and how difficult it is. So then it turned out there was a whole new club of honoured applications and that cost the province an extra 3.6 million.

Wijbrand Schaap

So there is regulatory pressure for governments. You have all sorts of laws and regulations that you have to abide by. So that just makes it a syrupy process. At the moment, a lot of people who apply for subsidies don't even know what rules there are and what rights they all have on their side. On the other side is Renée Steenbergen. Do you also observe that the bureaucratic pressure is huge for individual artists to access the system? I think that's one of the things you describe.

Renee Steenbergen

Yes, it is a very one-sided system, because actually art production is monopolised by the semi-public funds. Those are, for the visual arts, the Mondriaan Fund and for the performing arts, the Performing Arts Fund. These are corporatised, but actually implement the ministry's policy and receive money directly from it.

And then you have the equity funds. Whether corporate-related or individual funds. Corporate-related are VSB, for example, although Fortis no longer exists. But Fund 21 also used to be linked to a financial institution. And the individual ones, of course we already know. Under their own names often like the Vandenende Foundation or Turing. None of them apparently feel responsible for production, so they leave that to the government. That makes uh the power of the two semi-public funds disproportionate.

By the way, it also applies to cultural workers: the performers, but also uh the people behind the scenes and the freelance curators and authors and so on. They can't apply to the funds either. You have to be a legal person for that and you are not that as an individual, but only if you are a foundation or an association. That, I understand from lawyers, is actually laziness on the part of the funds, because there is no legal barrier to allowing individuals to make that application.

But the funds, like the government, are actually very much focused on supporting institutions. And then, of course, you get that 'Matthew effect'. So an institution that applies and that has already had a grant has a better chance. Surely it is actually seen as a seal of approval. In any case, there has already been a selection. That's easy for the funds, they often don't have enough people or the right people in-house to assess every application qualitatively as well.

Wijbrand Schaap

The Matthew effect: what is it?

Renee Steenbergen

The Rijksmuseum gets over 35 or 38 million from the state. So that one is among the most subsidised institutions we have. It is also our national museum of art and history. Just like opera and ballet. Those are the big bites from the national budget for culture and because they are so big and have so much exposure, they are also the ones that attract the most sponsorship. They also get the most visits and that is the Matthew effect.

The money actually goes in the big pile to the same A-brands as it is then called in corporate terms, The smaller and medium-sized companies have much more difficulty bringing in subsidy, or sponsorship. And they are also often less able to attract a lot of visitors because of their size.

Wijbrand Schaap

A millionaire raises more money per crowdfunding than a poor slob on welfare. That is a fact of life. But there is more to it I understood from Ellen. Prices, for instance. Because if you don't receive a grant, you might still be eligible for an award. That is also great fun and often involves large sums of money. But that doesn't go entirely well either, I understand.

Ellen Hardy

I started looking at the at the legal form, at the de de legal form of awards. Because I saw that the government co-finances quite heavily in numerous art and culture prizes. And as soon as the government waves money around, you're talking about public money. And the main rule is, that should be provided through grants.

Since 1998, the instrument of subsidy has been in the General Administrative Law Act. I am not going to elaborate on that. But that does mean that if the government provides a prize with public money, it is tax money and there are very heavy guarantees attached to it. They are called subsidies and subsidies are associated with accountability, transparency and obligations. In short, we must all be able to control where the money goes. That money must be spent in the public interest.

Those are two very important elements to this. The government should not engage in self-enrichment. By the way, making profit is not prohibited, mind you. There is no prohibition on profit, but it should not be at the top as the main objective.

Renee Steenbergen

And again, those awards are often handed out through juries. From personally involved experts in the field.

Ellen Hardy

I first went to see at what prices the government contributes financially. Then I came up with 650. I started looking more and more precisely. Because if it contained a prize in kind, it does not fall under the subsidy concept. Eventually, 121 remained where the government contributes fully or predominantly - two-thirds or more - financially.

Then I thought yes, that's where we're heading pretty much towards subsidies anyway. Would those institutions already know that themselves? I started e-mailing them all and looked through the regulations I found online.

In the end, everyone cooperated and everyone was really interested to know how the fork was now in the legal system. In the end, I discovered that 61 of those 121 can be qualified as subsidies. When I got that list, I did wonder whether everyone was actually aware of it. Do lenders know that they are actually making grants, have transparency obligations, and are under all sorts of safeguards in all sorts of other ways? And more importantly, the recipients. Do the rejected participants know what rights they have? Because those rights are pretty big.

Wijbrand Schaap

People say: 'No correspondence is allowed about the result'.

Ellen Hardy

No, you can. For art prizes where the government contributes to this extent, that really is a forbidden rule. Indeed, there should be correspondence about the results. Everyone has the right to know why they ended up in that place.

Renee Steenbergen

But isn't it the case that the government is actually trying to hold that off? All those costs of legal proceedings, the court proceedings?

Ellen Hardy

Yes, yes, yes. And then they still sometimes screen with that Thorbecke adage. That is used very pragmatically to economise. When deployed, it suddenly sounds very expensive and constitutional. We haven't done something for 150 years so now we're still not doing it. You can pierce through that.

At many awards, though, it's done well. There, they have really put the quality assessment at a distance. If you call in experts for that as a government, then that Thorbecke principle is already true, because then you don't interfere substantively with who is or is not eligible for the prize. But that does not always go well.

Renee Steenbergen

One of the points in my book is that institutions - not least the big ones - are very little transparent about how they spend that public money. I always say to students that's our money huh, we paid that, as taxpayers. Uh, but those institutions are very shady about that and I find that also in view of, for example, the benefits given to sponsors.

That relationship between public and private money should be much clearer, it should just be on the table. But even the big institutions, in their annual reports, often fail to provide insight into the exact spending of what they have received from private individuals and how it is spent. I think that is a real problem.

Wijbrand Schaap

It is also, for example, about the over incomes of artistic directors. We published about that in 2020. Surely there are a number of people who are on a Balkenende norm level and also end up much higher via all kinds of jobs. Uhm so the that that, those are all the tricky things that. That transparency is of course interesting, because that's where a lot goes wrong in the art world. That that a world where everyone knows each other. It's almost impossible to have a grant advisory committee where not someone knows someone from a club.

Renee Steenbergen

Supervisory boards, which every foundation must now have, and which are financially responsible, often contain no substantive people at all, but mainly people from the financial sector and lawyers. So there the distance between board and content is very great. Such a board consists of people who know very little about art and culture, but who think their governance model is adequate for the cultural sector. That is exactly where I miss the expertise in the content. So that is a very strange paradox.

Ellen Hardy

It would be very desirable if there were much more of a mix. One of my conclusions is also that the cultural sector knows far too little about administrative law. You're talking about supervision, about the degree of organisation, about funding. A few more lawyers could well concern themselves with that.

From the perspective of administrative law, I am the first person to have compiled this in a book. And exactly what René says: that supervisory board should precisely include artists.

Renee Steenbergen

So I argue for the 'Trustee model' like England has, where again there is a regulator looking at conflicts of interest. That happened to the Tate Modern in London, for example, which bought works by an artist who was also on the Board of Trustees.

Ellen Hardy

In our oversight model, the Thorbecke principle has been misinterpreted. We don't want government representatives on the council, because it subsidises. In England, they say: 'yes, it does, because it represents the people, the taxpayer. They have to ensure that public money is well spent according to the objectives'. But such a board also includes a local entrepreneur. And an art lover. That can be very broad, that board can include as many as 15 to 20 people. It also includes artists and a collector or gallery owner. That keeps each other in balance, is the idea.

So, in the Netherlands, there is no supervision of supervision. Well, we know the stories. The Stedelijk Museum, in which collectors bought seats by sponsoring rooms anyway. Again, that is exactly what we do not want in the Netherlands.

Even at the policy level, you see that clarity is lacking, that people no longer know exactly what belongs to which model. If you are a municipal museum like the Stedelijk Museum, you shouldn't be able to sell seats. That belongs to a Museum Of Modern Art in New York. Those just live off big donors. Then you get the right of decision. We have separated money and influence, so that shouldn't be the case. But so there are no possibilities to impose sanctions, because it is mainly self-regulation.

Ellen Hardy

The butcher inspecting his own meat. Or it is designed so opaquely that you cannot get a grip on it with legislation. For example, we have had the Top Income Standardisation Act since 2016. This means that in the semi-public sector, the highest in an organisation may not exceed a certain standard.

There are conductors who earn as much in evening as the whole orchestra costs. That, of course, is bizarre. Then I always wonder how it is that they can escape the dance, that they manage to get out from under that law.

Wijbrand Schaap

And the artist sits at the bottom and is always the child of the bill. There is also no way to challenge that power from within, because everyone is dependent on those structures. If you criticise, or complain, you lose your job, your opportunities.

Renee Steenbergen

Indeed. I did get asked why I didn't interview individual artists and creators for my book. But I tried and they all said, 'I want to talk off the record, but not by name because then I will lose clients'. They are very dependent on those institutions. And that is how it has been regulated by law since 2011. The institutions are the gatekeepers who have to guard the quality of the art they show. And with that, the artist has gained a double layer over him to which he is accountable: not a possible subsidiser, but also the stage or museum, the venue to which they are invited. Those institutions have not only been given more money to perform that task, but they have also been given more power.

This has only worsened the position of artists. And on top of that, of course, comes a compound of problems: the huge increase in the of rents that has made it almost impossible to find a studio anymore. Previously, tolerating squatting caused a huge increase in artists' workspaces and alternative spaces to show work. That has really ended completely, including in Amsterdam. The big cities have become internationally unaffordable for artists. That is, of course, very serious for the whole infrastructure. That whole idea of Richard Florida: the creative city, nothing remains of it this way. Artists are being chased out of the city and we are going to notice that.

It obviously means something for supply. Audiences are being shortchanged by the fact that artists are being squeezed so much. This is also what was magnified during the pandemic. We all know stories of creators, musicians, actors who have dropped out, who have gone elsewhere to find work that offers more livelihood security. We are going to notice that in supply. That's going to make waves in the water. I'm already hearing that from training courses too. Conservatoires say they are getting significantly fewer applications.

Wijbrand Schaap

But what next?

Renee Steenbergen

I am not going to fill all that in. That is up to the sector itself. One of the things that is encountered very widely in society is that efficiency thinking. A whole layer of bureaucracy has spawned that. The government should want to direct and control less and facilitate more. The government keeps talking about decentralisation and corporatisation, but meanwhile this grip has only become stronger through regulations and codes. This is a very strange contradiction you see more often in government policies. They say one thing, but the effect is exactly the opposite.

Most importantly: nurture those roots of the cultural ecosystem: creators and education. Cultivating artists and audiences. These should come together and institutions should be subservient to that. I also previously wrote a book on patronage. It was called The New Patronage. It is very nice that indeed more private donations are now going to institutions, but of course these are very often based on content. So why are these not shared with creators? An awful lot of money stays with institutions. The whole idea of being in a circular system and that if artists are not doing well, or if you can no longer guide people to music schools or libraries, that eventually becomes noticeable, further down the line.

That understanding does appear to be gone.

You have top performers who feel untouchable. They will never fall over either, but don't feel responsible for the whole system. That is very worrying.

Solidarity really has to return, and that includes permanent staff. I can't imagine working as a permanent member of an orchestra and having a substitute sitting next to you who must be just as good, getting 150 euros gross including all expenses. How is it possible that we allowed this to happen?

It is not just with the freelancers and artists. There should be a broad solidarity, people from the institutions should also participate. Ultimately, this affects the whole ecosystem. Soon, we'll be stuck with the hard sell. Because we know the government's easiest solution: cuts.

Now let's come up with a broad shared vision. Instead of all these sub-beliefs. When it comes to money, it works for a while, like with the Culture Taskforce during the Corona crisis, but not on content. Can we put content back on the agenda? E

Wijbrand Schaap

So fewer rules and less control, you say. Ellen, on the contrary, wants better rules. How are we going to find each other?

Ellen Hardy

I think rules can also create clarity. If you read them and if you use them. I see that a lot of actors in the sector, whether they are the recipients or the providers of money, are far too ignorant of them.

Renee Steenbergen

Yes, but that is because a maze of rules has been created. What the government does is: there is a problem and then they start sewing a patch on it and then a new hole is created. So then you get a mish-mash of smaller rules whose coherence nobody knows exactly anymore.

Ellen Hardy

I advocate harmonisation, alignment. All those four-year grants, why not submit them along one and the same regulatory structure? That's really a one main street that everyone has to pass through. And then, of course, you can differentiate at the detail level, on content, on selection criteria.

Wijbrand Schaap

I read by your statements: lots.

Renee Steenbergen

Yes I also read: that people perceive that to be fairer than when an expert rejects them.

Ellen Hardy

Yes and that's because, if you are rejected on a plan you have your heart and soul in...

Renee Steenbergen

...Something that meets the criteria...

Ellen Hardy

...But what for an artist is also very often intertwined with his personality, then it's much harder when you get an advice that is sour to you that detracts from that, or someone else thinks much better which you then have your own thoughts about, than when a notary draws lots and then says: 'OK, you do and you don't'. I think that's easier for support and for digesting the decision.

But then I don't mean 100% lots. I actually mean it phased: that there is a selection first, though, on which application is eligible. But if we are talking about that very fine quality test, all the way as it plays out with those BIS grants, you can draw lots. I mean, if you want to compare a jazz ensemble with a children's opera company? Essentially they are apples and pears and yet they are in the same bin and judged by the same advisory committee. Then I say: if you think they are eligible, grosso modo, prefer to draw lots.

I also think that the preparation then becomes different, that an institution would start the subsidy round differently. We have also seen it with Cappella Amsterdam. If they miss out on a round, they do have the resilience to get through the four years with a smaller programme and to enter the next round again.

Renee Steenbergen

Can't the rules be compressed to the most important ones? That would make it clearer.

Ellen Hardy

It can be simplified, but I also think the artists themselves should pay more attention to the rules.

Renee Steenbergen

I agree.

Ellen Hardy

You can sit around being creative all day, but you have to be able to show something even if you want to receive money from the government.

Wijbrand Schaap

They do need somewhere to get legal advice. It is usually heartily expensive, as legal aid is not free these days.

Renee Steenbergen

Arts Federation? Yes, but then you also have to be a member.

Wijbrand Schaap

If not everyone has equal access to justice and not everyone has knowledge of the law....

Renee Steenbergen

Then you hardly get around to working then. You have to be a cultural entrepreneur. In Belgium, they have the Art Statute. That is, in a way, a basic income for artists in Flanders. You can arrange it that way too. But the other thing is: the equity funds. Why don't they do more at the roots of the ecosystem? Why can't artists and cultural workers turn to them? AT my book presentation, fund expert Rien van Gendt spoke, and he said that funds said they often did not have the know-how to deal with individual artists. There is a solution to that. It's called reach renting. It is already being done in America. You then say to institutions that are closer to the field, for example the visual arts presentation institutions that work a lot with artists: we will give you some of that money to distribute among artists. We make sure you also have people paid to do that, because you do have that expertise and you can spend it in a meaningful way. But then you have to be willing, as a fund, to cooperate and hand over part of your selection.

I thought it was a great model, so there are solutions to be found for these kinds of problems, rather than, what you hear a lot of, 'That's the way it is, that's the system. We can't change that as individuals, can we?' Anything is possible.

Ellen Hardy

There are certainly many more funding structures possible and you don't always have to look to the government to do that.

Renee Steenbergen

A lot would be gained if there were more counters for artists to turn to. Then the pressure on those two semi-public funds would be considerably reduced. They have received much less money for makers, especially Mondriaan. Yes, that is really shocking. Since 2011, that is only 10% of what it was before that. So that's about excellence, a small group of artists who actually need it less already. Top art policy. So you see that more and more. And that then indeed becomes is often a legitimisation to subsidise less.

Wijbrand Schaap

Can we give one thing to listeners?

Renee Steenbergen

I think the most important thing is that the sector itself gets moving and indeed does not keep staring with rabbit's eyes in the government's headlights. There is an enormous amount of expertise and therefore vision. It apparently lacks the sense of urgency that something has to change now.

Look at what is happening in the country. There are strikes everywhere and I do think the industry is sometimes very docile. There could be a bit more civil disobedience. Why follow every rule exactly? You could also come up with a dissenting voice and say: 'Listen, we are the experts and we know how it works behind the scenes and here to here and no further. If the music schools have to close or the libraries, we will go to the barricades, because that is the axe to the root of the whole system!' I miss that. That feeling that we are many and can really make a difference. Let's make that difference!

Wijbrand Schaap

OK Ellen, can you get over this?

Ellen Hardy

I echo that. More focus on administrative law. That really benefits the sector. And by that, I don't mean that you have to start legalising everything, that you have to start litigating more, but from small to large simply saying to the government, 'We don't agree with something, and we want to know why you took this decision.'