STRICKING A BALANCE BETWEEN ARTISTIC AND BUSINESS ASPECTS

In recent decades, artists have been increasingly encouraged to consider the business aspects of their practice. Declining grants and fiercer competition mean that entrepreneurship amongst artists deserves renewed attention. What business skills will be expected of an artist in 2026? What opportunities and challenges do creators face? And how can cultural policy best adapt to the artist as an entrepreneur? These questions are central to Boekman #148: The Artist as Entrepreneur. Read more in the editorial more about the content and background of this issue.

Early entrepreneurship

An artist does not usually work in isolation and cannot do without a strong network of cultural professionals, venues, collectors, curators and institutions. Successful creative entrepreneurship requires a solid infrastructure, writes the exhibition curator Lara den Hartog Jager in the opening article. Before examining the current situation, Den Hartog Jager looks back at the evolution of the position of artists over the past few centuries and its impact on the relationship between the artist, society and the market. She identifies a turning point in the Romantic period, when the artist’s own ideas came to take centre stage. As an example, she cites the painter Gustave Courbet (1819–1877), who presented himself as an entrepreneur and even charged an admission fee for his own exhibition – something that was highly unusual at the time. 

A healthy professional practice

Entrepreneurship is an essential part of professional practice, as is evident from the various articles in this issue of Boekman. Artists need entrepreneurial skills, ‘but you don’t necessarily have to be an entrepreneur to have them’, argues Sjoerd Feitsma, Director of Platform ACCT. In his view, a healthy professional practice is, above all, in the artist’s best interests. Platform ACCT offers schemes to support such a professional practice and develops guidelines to put fair pay into practice. For example, last spring saw the launch of the Fair Pop Fund, which tops up pop artists’ fees to a fair pay level. 

Entrepreneurship, however, is not a separate aspect of artistic practice, writes Alexander Ramselaar (Culture+Entrepreneurship). It ‘arises from the choices artists make regarding their work, relationships, organisation and the resources needed to realise their ideas’. 

A healthy professional environment is also something that artists’ unions are committed to. A tour of Platform BK, Arts Federation and Authors' Association makes it clear what role they play within the playing field. Annemarth Idenburg and Sandra Trienekens They also demonstrate how cultural policy at various levels can promote artistic entrepreneurship. 

A safe working environment is also a key concern. Many artists work as self-employed individuals and are dependent on clients. That relationship makes them vulnerable. Journalist Natasja Admiraal discussed this with Isabel Wiltenburg, project manager at Mores, the support and advice centre for social safety in the cultural, creative and media sectors.  

Entrepreneurship in practice and in education

Judith Prins (AHK) and Tamara Rookus (ArtEZ) examine the focus on entrepreneurship in higher arts education. To pool knowledge, in 2024 the Community of Practice (CoP) for entrepreneurship in higher arts education set up. This will enable the quality of entrepreneurship education to be improved by learning from one another. 

In interviews, artists explain the various ways in which they earn a living and the trade-offs they make in doing so. It often turns out to be a balancing act between artistic and strategic choices. Take, for example, the trumpeter Teus Nobel says: ‘Sometimes you have to do something commercial in order to develop artistically’.