What does the canalside have against Drenthe anyway? Now Marieke Heebink again. It started with Yvonne Kroonenberg who, after a visit to Assen, spoke of "Simple people with those classic Drenthe heads, but with expressionless eyes. I walked around there and tried to understand those people in the same way I try to immerse myself in the spiritual life of animals." Afterwards, Kroonenberg rushed to...
With a new government in Belgium, the debate on art subsidies has also erupted there. The issue there is only 0.7 per cent of the national budget. The cut of a mere 10% is less substantial than in the Netherlands under the PVV's noose, but the arguments are the same. Though they are often better articulated. Josse de Pauw, international...
Wijbrand Schaap: 'The amateur arts. I experienced the cuts myself at the Utrecht Centre for the Arts in Utrecht. First, they were heavily cut back there back in 2001 under Leefbaar. They survived that, and now they were just recovering a bit...' Joop Daalmeijer: ' ...and now everything is going to the schools.' Wijbrand Schaap: 'There are...
Wijbrand Schaap: 'Just one more point. Then we're almost through.' Joop Daalmeijer: 'Continue quietly, we have until half past five.' Wijbrand Schaap: 'We have a problem with real estate. A lot of inner cities are empty. Shop premises are empty, downtown office buildings are unrentable. What do the municipalities say? Put artists in them. Cost nothing, because for free rent they do...
Wijbrand Schaap: 'The basic infrastructure was keelhauled by Zijlstra while it was not yet ripe. That, in its smaller version, now runs the risk of leading to further rigidity.' Joop Daalmeijer: 'That's a good observation. We are also working on that in our Culture Exploration. We are having a lot of discussions, which we are also taking out into the country. We are starting...
Wijbrand Schaap: 'Now on the role of cities. One of the reactions on our site is about the role of the randstad in cultural policy. Melle Daamen puts the primacy in the randstad, and goes further than the council in this.' Joop Daalmeijer: 'The council has no position yet.' Wijbrand Schaap: 'But there is something in the Culture Outlook. Cities form...
Wijbrand Schaap: 'Next hot issue. Copyright is mentioned in a few passages of the Cultural Exploration. I am also affected by that in various ways. There is, of course, that new author's contract law, which is going to be discussed in the chamber one day, maybe. Nice about that is that the creator's position in that law has been strengthened.' Joop Daalmeijer: 'Rightly so.' Wijbrand Schaap: 'But.
Wijbrand Schaap: 'There has been much talk about the change in Council attitudes under your leadership. After the confrontation course under your predecessor Els Swaab, you seemed appointed by Halbe Zijlstra to act as a kind of applause machine.' Joop Daalmeijer: 'I was not hired by Halbe Zijlstra, I was appointed by the queen. Isn't that nice?...
Wijbrand Schaap: 'When it comes to talent development and embedding in society, it is also very much about the absolute basics. It also touches on the minister's two functions: education and culture. Arts education in primary schools does not really help embedding. No attention has been paid to art in the pedagogical academies for years....
Joop Daalmeijer: 'I never authorise. I find that such nonsense. A journalist should just do his job properly.' Wijbrand Schaap: 'We agree on that then. We write up everything in full, but because conversations about everything tend to be endless, I want to hang it on the Culture Exploration. That's the most concrete piece and the most topical, and it...
We are going to talk about everything, because Joop was a bit fed up. All this criticism of the Council for Culture. That on his leadership it had degenerated into Halbe Zijlstra's lapdog, and that Jet Bussemaker laughs out loud at them. And that they conduct discussion behind a paywall. That's why we're going to talk to Joop Daalmeijer. The President. We agreed...
"Art is about personal development. It's not that Friday afternoon fiddling". Barbara Visser, artist and board member of the new Academy of Arts had an argument that was factual, and can be summarised briefly. We can attribute all sorts of things to art, but let's especially not. Learning about and experimenting with taste and creativity...
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...
I published two articles in NRC Handelsblad last year. The first (6 July 2013) was critical of government policy. There was little reaction to this. The second article (7 December 2013) was critical of the arts sector: it needs to make its own sharp choices. That did cause a stir, although I am convinced that many colleagues largely agree with the content...
Culture minister Jet Bussemaker can again make up for the cultural devastation caused by her predecessor Halbe Zijlstra. As promised earlier, money will be freed up for talent development. That was a demand of the chamber and a wish of the country. Are we happy? Of course. Although happy, there are also a few things that remain troublesome. [Tweet "1 Develop...
Update: Meanwhile, the Culture Council has picked up the gauntlet. Melle Daamen posted his pieces on Culture Press, and Joop Daalmeijer has agreed to give a comprehensive interview. More news soon, then. 'Melle is a member of the Supervisory Board. You have nothing to do with that. So that's why NRC anyway?' Dixit Joop Daalmeijer, the man who since he became chairman there...
Do you remember? The band-aid Halbe Zijlstra offered the cultural sector in the form of the Giving Act? Tax breaks would definitely lead to more sponsorship, so the impact of the austerity measures would not be nearly as dramatic as the sector itself cried out.
In March this year the Culture Council sounded the alarm. Unique under the new leadership, which is usually extremely docile when it comes to cultural cuts. But what happens to music schools, children's drama schools, libraries and amateur orchestras is otherwise entirely up to the citizens themselves, and their local councils. This is the minister's response to the chamber.
Over 60 million has disappeared from the coffers of the Netherlands' amateur artists in recent years. That money from your daughter's dance class, the brass band and your son's hip-hop class has been spent by municipalities, which had to compensate for cuts elsewhere, and provinces that suddenly saw no point in amateurs. That the national government additionally took 200 million from professional arts institutions is added to that.
The cuts to arts have prompted many people to stress that art should be socially and politically relevant. For Samuel Wuersten, artistic director of the Holland Dance Festival, social and political relevance is a broad concept.
How can a usually very ordinary, amiable theatre director suddenly come out with the notice That a few orchestras can go away and the National Ballet should be outsourced? We wondered so and headed to the car park at the Concertgebouw yesterday.
We kept a liveblog. Nice and old-fashioned, from the days when every month there was uproar somewhere about the government's handling of art. Now there is peace in the tent, as the PVV sardonically points out, because 'The Left' is now the bearer of policies devised by the PVV. The PVV predicts a black future for 'The Left' once the PVV comes to power.
An enthusiastic press release in times of severe headwinds. It calls for further reflection. Last Friday, a survey on the state of cooperation in the Dutch museum world was presented. After all, cooperation should be from Minister Bussemaker and kind of the Council for Culture. So it's nice that things are already going ok. Can we get back to fun things.
We saw it in March already been coming, but now it is official: culture minister Jet Bussemaker is ignoring the Museum Council's advice. So the advisory panel led by Joop Daalmeijer has not done its homework properly: its idea
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