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PERSONAL

Mea culpa! - Forgot to check the facts

Mea culpa and action 'It only happens when you fall on your face.' This quote by artist Job Koelewijn in De Volkskrant has hung on my toilet door for years. One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a journalist is not checking facts. And OuiJAYes that mistake I have thus made: this writing creative did not check the facts.... 

Delft Library

Dear Annemarie van Gaal, in the library they don't have time for bubbly talk.

The interesting thing about Financieel Dagblad columnist Annemarie van Gaal's stories is that you don't have to agree with her text at all but can still enjoy it. In her column in the newspaper of 13 April 2014, however, there is something else going on. Here, the conscience of financial and business Netherlands shows a very serious lack of... 

Artists, say NonNeinNEE to ridiculous questions!

Why a fun house festival still haunts my mind weeks after the fact. Let me tell you: OuiJaYes I was looking forward to it. Fancy space. Freedom. So it made perfect sense that I went to Jazz in de Kamer Leiden at the end of March. I could choose from various itineraries with groups and musicians like Artvark, Jeroen van Vliet, Ruben Hein, Ntjam Rosie. I chose... 

Why artist is the profession of the future

Book review "A whole New Mind" by Daniel H. Pink Among all the negative messages about the future of the arts, other voices pop up every now and then. 1 of the most impressive dissenting voices for me is the book "A whole new mind" by Daniel H. Pink. According to Daniel, artists and creatives are going to totally make it in the coming years. We are in... 

Cultural sector suffers from collective inferiority complex

"Of course I don't have to get rich from it..." It's pretty much the most frequently heard comment when you hang out with artists and creatives a lot. "Why not actually?" I then ask. Startled, they look at me. Appalled that you dare to question this universally held truth. In reply, something extraordinarily vague like "Well, just.... money isn't the most important thing, is it?" comes in.

Quote of the day

This is the Quote of the Day. A suggestion. Because so many nice things are said, some of which need no explanation, and some of which need a lot. If you have your own suggestions: send them to the editor.

Get rid of those discounts. Voluntarily pay more for art

Through the local theatre's website, I want to order tickets. I click on the performance of my choice. Select a date. Select the desired number of tickets. Click on "to pay". And there I can choose from at least 3 options to pay less for my tickets. Five euros discount with a CJP or as a person over 65. Four euros discount with... 

Another black day for independent journalism

After the brutal attack on the staff of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in Paris yesterday, journalists, cartoonists, politicians and the general public rallied worldwide to defend the freedom of speech. Many a front page of today's newspapers showed the cartoons for which chief editor Charb (Stéphane Charbonnier) and 11 others were brutally murdered by Said and Cherif Kouachi,... 

2015 is not left: 5 reasons why art is becoming more exclusive

Art ends its 70th anniversary as a 'Leftist Hobby' in 2015. There is not much more to predict for this year. Art goes back to the bourgeois status it held since the start of the industrial revolution. 1: Art was never left Art, of course, has never been 'left'. Subsidy may have come from the thinking tubes of social and Christian democrats, but art an sich... 

The myth of cultural entrepreneurship: 6 reasons why it's not about money

Since the cuts, it has become a bitter necessity for many, cultural entrepreneurship. But what exactly that is, nobody knows at all. Even the government actually has no idea when talking about it. But, the government asks, so there must be an answer. In recent years, the Dutch art world has been flooded with self-proclaimed experience experts on cultural entrepreneurship.... 

Google and facebook take over role of galleries, publishers and impresarios

For most artists, it is an ideal. Being represented by a gallery. Writers have their sights set on a contract with a publisher. Musicians eye labels eagerly and theatre-makers queue up for an impresario. Creators have a love-hate relationship with such intermediaries. Because while the average creative professional would be willing to spare a toe in exchange... 

Austin Peralta has been dead for 2 years. But he gave us the jazz of the future

Stories about jazz are more often about dead heroes than about the future. If they do reflect on jazz's prospects, they are usually bleak. The genre has been declared dead more than once, and if jazz is not dead, it has at least moved or smells funny. British essayist Geoff Dyer published a decade... 

Now for the money. 2 problems and only one and a half solutions in the new copyright law.

Should the free market be curbed to save Dutch culture? The issue facing the Dutch government is quite a big one. On Tuesday, Dutch 'makers' (artists, photographers, actors, screenwriters, translators, directors, freelance journalists, etc.) presented a pamphlet. The pamphlet outlines the idiotic situation the Dutch cultural and creative sector is in. No other country disregards... 

4 lessons you can learn from Stromae: everything is about connection

We usually don't think about it, but marketing is all around us. And that while we can learn a lot from all those good examples. And certainly also from the not so good ones. Recently, I saw on TV an interview with the world star Stromae. This young Belgian rapper and musician has been very successful in recent years. Whether you... 

Can art institutions learn from the success story of a Rotterdam hair salon?

It is a little after ten o'clock. I'm on my way to the bakery on Rotterdam's Nieuwe Binnenweg. I pass a coffee shop, a bicycle shop, an off-licence. I also pass the hairdresser's where about 12 men are waiting in front of the door. An hour before the doors open. "Yes but wait... A hairdresser that doesn't open until 11 o'clock... 

The future is not fixed. 7 solutions to the arts crisis.

By Melle Daamen 'What do you want then?' was a question I received quite often in response to my articles last year in NRC, in which I expressed my concerns about the state of the arts in the Netherlands and especially its future. I argued for a fundamental debate from within the arts sector itself, focusing on the future, including... 

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