The cultural sector should listen more closely to the minister's mother. Who said: 'You can be sad for a long time about what you didn't get, also be happy about what you did get.' Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven cited her mother in the closing stages of the inserted budget consultation on the incidental aid to the sector, which was declared last week....
Update Wednesday 15-4, 16:00: this afternoon, the government has decided to come over as yet with additional schemes for the cultural sector, which are now no longer taken out of the culture budget. Apparently, the massive pressure helped. We will let you know when more is known about it. Update Wednesday 15-4, 20:00: Drop in the ocean arrived, leaving the below message only....
On 2 March, Platform Aanvang! launched the petition Nederland maakt kunst / art makes the Netherlands at the Solidarity evening in ITA. An evening that opened the conversation for a solidarity sector, but most of all sounded the alarm for the planned downsizing of the arts sector. The petition was signed by more than 11,000 people in a week. When we saw the...
When a Dutchman thinks about art, he thinks of buildings that cannot support themselves, played by, or hung with work by, people who cannot sustain themselves. So money must be added, and we call this subsidy. In this way, art subsidies become a suspicious form of welfare, more suspicious than the billions in income support that wealthy...
In April 2020, the Persgroep, now DPG Media because it smells better internationally, will stop regional art supplements in its newspapers. No more art reports and interviews, hardly any reviews. Local bookshops will lose their stage in all Dutch regions, as the publisher of Volkskrant, Trouw and AD has a regional monopoly. The message, brought by a reporter from the Eindhovens Dagblad, struck...
A week before the end of 2019, Culture Press' membership stands at nearly 150, up from 40 exactly a year ago. A growth of more than 300 per cent is quite extraordinary. So we have demonstrated that we matter to a rapidly growing group of decision-makers in the cultural sector. So good that they are happy to contribute to...
Modest cheers in the performing arts world. A motion tabled on 18 November by Corinne Ellemeet (GroenLinks), together with PvdA, CDA and D66, forces minister Van Engelshoven to investigate the consequences of the cuts to the Performing Arts Fund before the subsidy is distributed. The House approved this on 26 November. Wonderful, you might say, because if clear...
The culture sector will have to be patient for a while yet. Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven had no intention of changing any of her policies on Monday 18 November, during the discussion of the culture budget in the Standing Parliamentary Committee on Culture. Despite a fairly widely supported desire, especially from the opposition, to do something about the 8.6 million cut in the...
'I'm not going to make everyone happy with this.' These words were uttered by minister Ingrid van Engelshoven during the debate on her principles paper last Thursday. True words. Indeed, the shine of her ministership has now worn off. Van Engelshoven is, after Bussemaker, the second culture minister who had to implement Mark Rutte's culture policy, and had nothing to offer but a...
On 11 April 2019, the Council for Culture put a shovel in the dykes of the polder that is the Dutch cultural system. After all, the basic infrastructure, established in 2009 to finally bake renewal and flow into the system, is dead. The structure carefully conceived over years has been turned into a ruin by 10 years of cultural policy in which the...
The art world needs to be more entrepreneurial. The VVD thinks so, D66 thinks so, in fact the entire Lower House thinks so. But how do you get that combined with the 'intrinsic value' that the last two culture ministers say it should also be about? The Council for Culture has now, in response to a question from minister Ingrid van Engelshoven in March last...
How did the Hague prostitute Blonde Dolly make her millions? And why was her killer never caught, when it was abundantly clear who must have strangled her? That smells like a conspiracy, and conspiracies are like grist to writer Tomas Ross' mill. In Blonde Dolly, he tackles one of the oldest and most mysterious cold cases in the Netherlands. Until it...
As part of "Hi, Figures!", Statistics Netherlands today released updated figures on the performing arts in the Netherlands. These show a cautious recovery, although the consequences of the 2011 interventions by the VVD and PVV are still painfully visible. The figures show that theatre in particular is struggling. There, the...
Zundert's flower parade, a piece of unique folk culture (since 1936!) in which the - non-native - Dahlia plays a leading role, had a tough time this year. Due to the drought, there were fewer flowers than other years and so improvisations had to be made by the hundreds of volunteers who, every year, make the village where the memory of Vincent van Gogh is alive and well again...
A little pity was in order during the debate on the culture budget in the Lower House. Thierry Aartsen, the VVD's brand-new culture spokesperson, still hadn't done his homework and therefore got terrible on his mitre from fellow culture spokesmen in the Lower House. And then also from the minister. Was he allowed to speak around 11...
'Culture is about stimulating, fraternising, challenging. Then there is no difference between corso and ballet.' Says Thierry Aartsen on Friday 16 November in the Volkskrant. Thierry who? Thierry Aartsen, the one who will be speaking on culture at the VVD in the coming months. In the coming months? Yes, because VVD culture spokesmen are usually appointed for one or two debates, after which...
The Netherlands suffers from a problematisation problem. In case you find that a problematic term, that is part of the problem. Indeed: we make something into a complicated problem and explain it complicated because there is actually no reason to make it a problem. Venue: our national assembly. Reason: not everyone benefits equally from...
Less supply of subsidised art is good for the country. Antoinette Laan, culture spokeswoman for the governing VVD party, has thought so for at least eight years. Back in 2011, then still as alderman in Rotterdam, she stated that she did not understand why art institutions were open on weekdays. After all: everyone was at work then and so couldn't come and have a look anyway. Listen here...
Uproar. A widely recognised and by his own admission always attacked opinion maker with a slight preference for strong men in Russia and America has discovered that art is leftist and elitist. Indeed, Wierd Duk, Russia expert since he spent a few years running around Moscow for various media outlets, writes in the Telegraph that art is often left-wing kitsch[ref]N[ref][/ref]Wierd Duk has since revealed...
This post has been updated following a response from VVD The Hague. Yesterday I wrote: But so that was misunderstood. Today the VVD called. A transcript of the conversation can be found below: With Frans Schuyt fraction chairman The Hague VVD. I think two things have been mixed up. You have the programme in the budget, Culture and Library, of 102 million,...
A Saudi prince is paying $450 million for a mediocre painting by Leonardo da Vinci; a Dutch politician is pledging a crate of beer for a new composition. In a nutshell, these two extremes capture our current dealings with culture. Total contempt on the one hand and unimaginable overvaluation on the other are two sides of the same coin. We do not judge art for its...
Musicians are no longer allowed to perform for a pittance. At least, not if the club they work for, or perform in, receives a subsidy. In a sector opinion released today, the Culture Council argues that the structural underpayment of workers in the creative sector is no longer sustainable. 'If that means fewer programmes can be made (or that there...
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...
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...
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