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New learning programme for corporate museum professionals

How do we ensure that the museum sector remains financially healthy and future-proof? In what ways can we transform museums into sustainable and attractive workplaces? And in what ways do we encourage inclusiveness and diversity? These pressing questions are at the heart of the new learning programme Leadership in Culture (LinC) x Museum Association. Challenges LinC x Museum Association was created at the initiative of the Museum Association... 

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Gaudi at Fabrique de lumiere. Screenshot cut-out broadcast WNL

Broadcaster Wakker Nederland on art: make a damned effort yourself. 

'While many regional museums are struggling, commercial museums are popping up like mushrooms.' Omroep Wakker Nederland, since we associate 'awake' with 'woke', preferring to be known as broadcaster 'we' the Netherlands, had to do something with 'art'. The opening lines of the first broadcast of 'de Stand van Nederland', their 'research programme', were an instant hit, so were the images: the museum association in the ball pit of a... 

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created by Midjourney AI with the prompt: black female artist exposition

The art world is still white and male.

The website where the Dutch umbrella organisation of museums, the Museum Association, keeps track of audience and number of people employed by its members was unreachable today. Perhaps that is because today the leading website Artnet also came out with revealing figures on the arts sector in the US. The report, titled The Burns Halperin Report, includes an overview of the... 

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Press officers and journalists, an intimate love affair, or high-level battle?

In the best-read newsletter of cultural Netherlands (on average 60 per cent open and 12 per cent click links, where the national average for peers is 30 and 2 per cent respectively), I wrote recently that the news, that visits to theatres and museums have not yet returned to precorona levels, seemed to come as a surprise to some. I mentioned... 

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Museum association sounds alarm: even strong museums will not get out of the one-and-a-half-meter without support

Last weekend's #unmuteus parades might lead you to believe that, as soon as the weather allows, the cultural world will be out of its misery in less than no time. The tens of thousands who took to the streets are quickly populating the halls again, and with a little more water with the beer, and slightly more expensive mints, the night and event industry - which is also there for the... 

Read More "Museum association sounds alarm: even strong museums will not get out of the one-and-a-half-meter without support

Museum directors: is their role as figureheads and media artists becoming more important than as art history experts?

Dutch museums, partly due to the recent digital Museum Week, have been able to retain a large part of their audience. There is - reports the Museum Association on its website - a slight turnover though. And the hitherto loyal public will not find their way to museums automatically and to the same extent. But the picture is that the... 

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Council calls minister's plan to let Museum Association audit itself 'questionable' and contrary to 'good governance'

Just over a year ago, Culture Press carried the story that Wim Hupperetz, director of the capital's Allard Pierson, had resigned his post as chairman of the museums and heritage advisory committee to the Culture Council. The reason was Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven's decision to hand over control of national museums' policies to... 

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Cultural big earners: jump through your karma for once

My story about cultural big earners turned out to be the talk of the town in the cultural sector. Not publicly, i.e. mainly behind the scenes, I was approached. One of the few people who did speak out publicly was Henk Scholten. On Facebook, he responded to a column by journalist Aukje van Roessel about the questions raised by The Hague city council 

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Why measuring leads to knowing less and measuring even more. On the futility of trend reports and indices

They have learned something at Boekman. The foundation, which since this year has had the honour of managing the culture index, understands that trend graphs say precious little. We have observed this several times on this site, and the researchers now confirm this wholeheartedly. So this year the club is doing things differently. For the past few months, sixty wise men and women have been... 

Read More "Why measuring leads to knowing less and measuring even more. On the futility of trend reports and indices

Culture Council advisory committee chairman steps down: 'Nobody checks state museums anymore'

Wim Hupperetz, director of Amsterdam's Allard Pierson, has resigned his position as chairman of the museums and heritage advisory committee to the Council for Culture. In protest, he says, against the irresponsible way in which the minister is now implementing the Culture Council's advice. 'If this continues, we will soon be giving millions of euros to a few... 

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Sharp rise in volunteering in Dutch museums #fairpractice

The chances of being helped in a museum by someone standing there unpaid, purely for her fun, have increased considerably in recent years. This is especially true for museum shops, museum cafés and cloakrooms - in short, anything related to commercial activities and operations. This is evident from a closer examination of the rather jubilant 2017 figures, which the Museum Association... 

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Museum Association juggles numbers. (Why all our museums are doing great)

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... 

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Gerard de Kleijn makes Museum Gouda more accessible

Gerard de Kleijn is leaving on 1 February after six years as director at Museum Gouda. The flamboyant, eloquent and erudite director leaves behind a financially and artistically healthy Museum for his successor Marc de Beyer. De Kleijn made the museum more accessible to Gouda residents and art lovers from outside the historic city. In 2016, the museum attracted around 40,000... 

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More museum visits due to museum annual pass. So money should probably be added.

20 per cent more visits to museums thanks to the museum year card. This will earn museums a sloppy 14 million euros extra this year. The jubilant press release about the study by a renowned agency does not lie. Or does it? After all, six months ago featured in NRC Handelsblad still read that the Museum Card Foundation was in cash trouble.

Read More "More museum visits due to museum annual pass. So money should probably be added.

'Museum sector buzzing with collaborative initiatives' but keen to keep doing it themselves

An enthusiastic press release in times of severe headwinds. That calls for a closer look. Last Friday, a study on the state of cooperation in the Dutch museum world was presented. After all, cooperation is a must from minister Bussemaker and sort of from the Council for Culture. So it's nice that things are already going ok. Can we get back to doing nice things.

What the press release does not tell, but the research report makes clear, is that it is not at all that fantastic ...

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Museums, Boxmeer theatre, IKON, ANP, regional broadcasters, impoverished library

MuseumgoudA not expelled MuseumgoudA may still remain a member of the Dutch Museum Association (NMV). A majority of the members were still of the opinion in September that the museum should be expelled because it had auctioned Marlene Dumas' The Schoolboys at the end of June without consulting other museums. That is against the NMV's rules. It did, however, decide to change the rules for the... 

Read More "Museums, Boxmeer theatre, IKON, ANP, regional broadcasters, impoverished library

Exhibition Sketches of Beauty sheds new light on metre-long sketch designs for 'Gouda Glasses'

The stained-glass windows of the Sint-Janskerk in Gouda, known as the Gouda Glasses for short, are famous abroad. Domestically, the colourful splendour and artistic value of the sometimes 20-metre-high windows is less well known. Even less known are the paper sketches for these windows, which have recently been restored. The exhibition 'Sketches of beauty', opened by Queen Beatrix, closes... 

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Fransche School in jeopardy, blind library closed, nibbling on VAT measure via CJP and Volkenkunde/Tropen Institute merger possible

Arnhem - Scepticism over success of cultural heart Rijnboog Arnhem city council has many doubts about the financial feasibility of the Rijnboog arts cluster. (...) [Alderman] assumes 16 million subsidy from the province and another 4 million in contributions from sponsors for the new arts centre containing the Museum of Modern Art Arnhem, the Schouwburg and Focus Filmtheater.... 

Read More "Fransche School in jeopardy, blind library closed, nibbling on VAT measure via CJP and Volkenkunde/Tropen Institute merger possible

Royishment threatens Gouds Museum over sale of Dumas painting to unknown party

Ok. It is not Victory Boogie Woogie, the Mondrian painting that, in a distant and then cultural past, embarrassed ministry and municipality of Hilversum, because of the planned sale of the canvas to pay for the renovation of the town hall. Still. 'Schoolboys' by Marlene Dumas is also a canvas by a cherished painter, and you don't sell that either 

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That could well be a big event next weekend

We are not big on copying press releases directly, but this one accidentally slipped in. For those who didn't know it yet, but tout art is going loopy on Sunday and Monday for the preservation of sanity in the Netherlands. Although that will have no effect on the architect of the cut, PVV member Martin Bosma. Even the cultural sector in Limburg (Geert... 

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Hermitage draws visitors away from Amsterdam museums, while nationwide visits grew in 2010

The margins are not huge, but the Van Gogh Museum's attendance figures have been falling for a few years now. In peak year 2006, 1,677,268 visitors still walked through the vistas; in 2010, there are likely to be only 1,432,000. The Rijksmuseum, which remains open despite its renovation, is also still far below the figures of peak year, with an expected 900,000 visitors.... 

Read More "Hermitage draws visitors away from Amsterdam museums, while nationwide visits grew in 2010

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