All about politics, policy, society and how those things relate to culture and art.
'What do you desire from Ingrid van Engelshoven, the Minister of Culture?" asked Culture Press in a newsletter to subscribers. Good question! Especially after that first nod she made by generously pledging an extra 10 million to the Performing Arts Fund for the well-performing but not yet receiving anything, 'because the money had run out'. Very nice that band-aid, but...
The debate on the 2017 culture budget on Monday 13 November was a breath of fresh air. Not because there was suddenly a lot more money coming out of any top hat, but because there was a minister with vision. And with room to express that vision. After seven years full of pushing and pulling and rejected motions, cash shift operations and bicycle bell trading, there was finally...
Of course, this is really actually better news than what was already in the coalition agreement. The extra 10 million fought for last year for performing arts institutions that were good enough but fell below the saw line because of running out of money will get structural money added. Good news for a few clubs that would really be out of business otherwise, like Orkater. The good news...
A new generation of leaders in culture rose in the Utrecht Academy Building on Thursday 9 November. The 39 leaders come from the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam to Schunck in Heerlen and from the VPRO in Hilversum to the Utrecht festival Le Guess Who. In a year and a half, they discovered new working methods and formulated new vistas for the arts. That could ...
Afterwards, it actually dawned on me what had gone wrong at No Man's Land. The event, a sort of combination of networking drinks, symposium and mega workshop was set up from the best of intentions. Initiated by The Cooperative, the club not to be confused with The Cooperative. The latter De Coöperatie is based in Amsterdam and is an alliance of freelance...
Well in advance of the March 2018 municipal elections, the Amsterdam Arts Council has come out with an Advisory Cultural Investment Account. The advice actually comes just too late to serve as input for the various election programmes of Amsterdam's main political parties. It is, however, well in time to possibly play a role in the coalition negotiations that will follow the...
In a lost hour, I read the Cultural Vision Amersfoort 2030. Not reading material to sit on the edge of your seat, but perfectly suitable for a train journey. I am not used to reading policy documents. It struck me that the tone of the Amersfoort Cultural Vision was confident, focused and determined. Firm language. No room for doubt. I asked myself...
The Rutte III Cabinet is finally in place after long negotiations. It is a cabinet that will govern in financial prosperity, but that prosperity applies to a very limited extent to the Arts & Culture sector. Step by step, the cabinet will work towards an extra 80 million euros for the Culture sector from 2020, it says. But if this were to be enough...
The commotion about Beatrix Ruf's side job, or rather just second job, touches on a number of important core values for the proper functioning of society in general and the cultural sector in particular. Firstly, that cooperation is based on trust. The Supervisory Board was justified in assuming that Ruf would not run a consultancy company alongside her...
Jetse Batelaan has spent pretty much this entire century making the most extraordinary theatre in the world. At least, of my world. Often with very few words, always with a great sense of bare aesthetics and usually sympathetic with a weird twist halfway through. His latest masterpiece is an adaptation of Thea Beckman's Crusade in Jeans. Though we need at least three quarters of...
It succeeded. And that's even though we really didn't have a cent's worth of confidence left here. But still. It is there, in the financial section of the 'Confidence in the Future' coalition agreement: 'Intensification of 0.1 bln euros for the benefit of the cultural sector and historical democratic awareness. (RA_631)' That's 100 million euros, which is exactly what one of...
Museums in the Netherlands are doing well. Today, the Museum Association released a kind of annual report in which this was made abundantly clear in tables and graphs. Visits are increasing. Between 2015 and 2016, the sector counted 2.5 million more visits. Mainly by foreign tourists. At the same time, more and more museums are running at a loss. According to the Museum Association, that negative balance now hits for...
Art subsidy cuts have been passed on to the weakest shoulders. Minister Jet Bussemaker made no bones about it in one of her latest public appearances. 'I have often praised the resilience of the sector, and we should celebrate that,' she declared yesterday at the presentation of the Fair Practice Code, 'but I also saw that subsidised institutions...
Our public broadcasting system is unique in the world. Unfortunately, it is not something to be particularly proud of. The system and the thinking behind it are virtually incomprehensible. Or, as NTR director Paul Römer put it less diplomatically in August: we have 'a backward system that cannot be explained to anyone (anymore)'. It was a sideline in his interview with...
Speaking of diversity, within the dominantly white theatre audience, it is also full of bubbles. Over the past two weeks, for instance, I have just let it dawn on me how little overlap there is between the audiences of the two art theatres in my city, Utrecht. At least: for a while I sort of immersed myself in the world of...
Brandend Kalf wants more fire in Dutch cinema. Parallel to the opening of the Dutch Film Festival, this initiative group organised a meeting where objections to the far too safe Dutch film were listed. Where is the subversive cinema?
This week, two things already became clear about the Dutch theatre world. One: the topic of diversity is finally really on the map and two: the theatre world, however small, is hopelessly divided. During Het Theaterfestival, there were two debates/ meetings/ symposiums on the lack of diversity in theatre. One on Monday, the other on Thursday. Bit much in one...
We like to be touched, we Dutch. And if we are not touched ourselves, we want to touch others. These are the two main reasons why people seek out poetry. This memorable fact has come to light thanks to research by Utrecht scientist Kila van der Starre. She will soon receive her PhD on a quantitative study into...
This summer, all was well. In Theatererkrant, house organ of the performing arts, an article appeared, apparently also on behalf of the Council for Culture. It showed how a hitherto unknown company called The Transition Office had pretty much completed the new sector plan, employed by the Council for Culture. Many people had been spoken to and now there were still...
To start right away with the rottenest news: according to Ferry Mingelen, D66 is not going to fulfil its election promise of 100 million reparations for the arts budget. The retired parliamentary journalist announced this during his opening speech of Het Theaterfestival, Thursday 7 September at Amsterdam's Stadsschouwburg theatre. He had spoken to party leader Pechtold on Tuesday. The latter had said that the ten...
Good timing always remains tricky. Just as the middle class is getting ready for the Sinterklaas season, the Supervisory Board of Kunstencentrum Witte de With announces that the name is going to change. That name came up for discussion in the wave of public agitation over appropriation, unionist images and reparations for the Netherlands' slavery past. Initially, it seemed to...
Interesting news (from August) from the HBO Monitor was released into the world today by lobbying club Arts 92. Never before has unemployment among newly graduated artists been as low as in 2016. At just 3.1 per cent, it is even below the average for all HBO students. The average hourly wage of fresh artists, however, is more than 30 per cent below that of their colleagues
Art has been utterly politicised. It has been creeping, and faster than I thought. Artists now make political speeches, conduct rounds of public participation in the service of lobbying organisations. They discuss identity instead of telling the stories that take us beyond the delusion of the day. That cultural funds are now gently starting to talk about social connection too,...
This week it was announced that the VSB Fund is discontinuing the VSB Poetry Prize. That announcement came rather hard throughout the art world. After all, the fund stated that it was going to focus much less on culture and more on social causes. It appears to fit a trend. More funds are shifting their focus from culture to society. At least, that ...
The decision will be official in mid-September, but behind the scenes it has already been made. The Netherlands will have a very small basic cultural infrastructure for the performing arts, and a very large fund that anyone who wants to make theatre, dance, mime or music must apply to. I asked around a bit recently, and so that's what it's going to be. That way, politicians can't...
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