"There is a fear among the artistic middle class of oversimplification, as if working-class people are not smart enough for art. I find that really insulting. My great-grandfather would be offended." I found this combative quote in The Mill, an extremely successful local news site for the Greater Manchester Area, a kind of northern English Randstad with a few million inhabitants. It...
"In the short term, the threat comes from black-racial activists and their leftist slaves. A very small group of activists with an obsession with skin colour have opened the frontal attack on the symbols of Western culture. They claim to speak for all of black Holland. This must eventually end in reparations because of slavery and job quotas against whites, like in South Africa....
In North Brabant, the annual provincial subsidy for professional art will go down by €629,000 a year from 2025. Whereas prestigious, and very vital, organisations such as Boulevard, Bosch parade and Matzer could count on an amount of 8.25 million until now, from the new culture plan period it will be only 7.6 million. The Brabant cultural institutions, united in The Art of...
"The unease of the voters who gave Wilders 37 seats is not solved by the position of power the PVV has now achieved." Roy Kemmers (43) is an associate professor at the sociology faculty of Erasmus University in Rotterdam. On Tuesday 28 November, he wrote an opinion piece in De Volkskrant, commenting on the rise of populism. He obtained his PhD...
On 6 December, the new House of Representatives will be sworn in. a week later, the deliberations on the budget tabled by the incumbent caretaker cabinet in September will begin. The then secretary of state for culture, Gunay Uslu, has since flown the coop and cannot be challenged on her budget. Someone else will now have to defend that budget. Those who wondered whether the peace...
The research is there, and the figures are not uplifting. In the arts sector, underpaying especially freelancers and not honouring overtime is standing policy. If this is to be made up from now on, with the existing budget, small institutions and festivals in particular will fall over immediately. The study on this was presented yesterday to outgoing Culture Secretary Uslu. Principal Arts...
"Sales of children's books during Children's Book Week edition 2023 are higher than in 2019, 2020 and 2021. This applies to both sales through physical shops and e-commerce." KVB-Boekwerk, the research institute of Dutch Booksellers, has been publishing trend reports on the book market for a few years now. This year, for the first time, these include figures on sales of children's books,...
"But in the next week, can't you still come up with a law that enshrines art education in primary education?" A striking moment in the 'Collective Creative Culture Debate' held in a packed Herz of TivoliVredenburg on Wednesday 15 November. The Creative Coalition and Kunsten '92 made one last attempt to put arts and culture on the agenda of the...
In the series In Perspective, Erik Akkermans looks back and ahead at developments in cultural policy and practice. Today: policies for jazz and improvised music. From the Oude Schans to Rijswijk May 1983, Monday morning, a quarter past eight. Location: the soulless office tower in Rijswijk housing the Ministry of Welfare, Public Health and Culture. Minister Brinkman addressed the members of the Working Group on...
The Coproducers is an initiative of 12 theatres whereby they act as co-producers of productions by theatre makers who are no longer starting, but also not yet established. By corona there is a gap in the career development of younger creators, last year the Council for Culture and State Secretary for Culture and Media Gunay Uslu sounded the alarm. This season push...
There it is, the long-awaited election manifesto of the 'Who Says A, Must Say B' party New Social Contract. Until now, Pieter Omtzigt has not been known as an art lover. Nor are there any notable culture people on his candidate list, so the fact that it contains anything about culture at all is a bonus. It's 9 points, I'll highlight 2 of them: "To promote the creation of...
The other day I had an unpleasant conversation with a public relations officer of a medium-sized festival. He thought it would be a good idea if I came to write about that fantastic festival because of that unique opening event. I asked, "Are you members?" He said, "No." I said, "Then I don't know if I will be able to, because during that time there are also activities....
Labour disputes in the Netherlands are on the rise. In 2021, the number of labour disputes increased by 17% overall. This increase will continue in 2022 and 2023, writes nu.nl, among others, based partly on the increased demand for legal aid in labour disputes. The arts and culture sector is certainly no exception. The media regularly show conflicts and abuses within the cultural sector. Add to this...
"A good example of how the government wants to encourage that power from the bottom up is through culture. Culture confronts, inspires and bridges contradictions. From festival grounds to concert halls, and from museums to music schools. That is why the cabinet continues to promote the enjoyment of culture, for instance with the Culture Card for young people. The cabinet also wants the public library in as many...
Amsterdam, 12 September 2023 - The collective labour agreement for theatre and dance has been declared approved by both NAPK and Kunstenbond supporters. The collective agreement agreed on a general salary increase of 5% plus a flat-rate increase of €150. This salary increase means an average pay rise of 9.44%. On 6 July last, the Arts Union...
In Zutphen, I attended Jeroen den Herder's congenial small-scale cello festival. There, two young Portuguese students gave a lecture/recital on their research project on the music of the fado singer and composer José Zeca Afonso, an important voice in the 1974 Portuguese Revolution. At home, I looked up that music. It turned out to be the perfect background when reading "Friesland, my...
Of course, we can continue to complain about the poor treatment of our artists, we can also approach it with a positive slant. That must have been the consideration of composers' interest group Nieuw Geneco when establishing the 'Fair Practice Awards'. On Friday 8 September, they were presented for the fourth time at Utrecht's TivoliVredenburg: prizes for commissioners who for once...
The hardest part of going back to work after the summer holidays are the holiday stories from colleagues. Or from yourself. That fantastic view, that unique campsite, that beautiful beach, that restaurant where you got the best food in the world for no money, that indigenous people you visited first with your tour bus. That moment of climate embarrassment that you had a few more...
The Netherlands is a country of culture. Not an art country. Because the word 'art' appears in almost none of the election manifestos we have to choose from on 22 November. Only the VVD talks about 'art in depots'. It does talk about culture all the time. About whether we shouldn't once again start making a rock-hard distinction between art and culture,...
The VPT (Vereniging voor Podiumtechnologie), VSCD (Vereniging van Schouwburg- en Concertgebouwirecties) and NAPK (Nederlandse Associatie voor Podiumkunsten) are joining forces to publish a Dutch version of the Theatre Green Book. The reference work is being used in more and more countries within Europe to structurally shape the achievement of sustainability goals. In our sector, too, the...
Fascinating television, for sure. Cabaret artist Theo Maassen, who is emerging as an excellent interviewer in this Summer Guest year, went 'full Paxman' on Khadija Arib. Following in the footsteps of famous BBC Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman, he pulled out all the stops to elicit a confession from the former Lower House Speaker. It didn't work, and at half past 12, after a very exciting hour of interview television, it stood...
The creative sector is pushing for a radical change in the arts subsidy system. This is evident from the lobbying documents (position papers and suggestions) sent to political parties' election programme writers. The largest and most important of them, the theatre boards (VSCD) and Kunsten 92, want the national government to give municipalities a clear and specific culture budget ('earmarked') from now on. By doing so, they want...
Above all, we must continue with the favourable arts policy initiated by the fourth Rutte cabinet. That is what the arts umbrella organisation Kunsten ´92 says in a letter in response to the fall of the last cabinet under that name. This is a remarkable turn of events after 13 years in which most of the art world wanted nothing more than to get rid of the...
The Netherlands is returning 478 cultural objects at the request of Indonesia and Sri Lanka. During the colonial period, these objects ended up in the Netherlands unjustly, through looting or coercion, for example. State Secretary Uslu (Culture and Media) has decided on the return. In doing so, she is following the very first recommendations of the Colonial Collections Committee chaired by Lilian Gonçalves-Ho Kang You. The works...
Searching for information on persons who lived in slavery on Aruba and Sint Eustatius has become easier with the online posting of two indexes and corresponding scans of colonial archives. The indexes can be searched from 30 June on the website of the Archivo Nacional Aruba (ANA) and on the website of the National Archives. In the index Aruba: slavery...
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