Let's just start with the good news: De Staat is a regular fixture in the Netherlands from now on. And so we are talking about the band De Staat. Who make fantastic music videos these days. They have been promoted from a four-year grant with the Performing Arts Fund to a four-year grant according to the Cultural Basic Infrastructure (BIS). With 55 other newcomers. All weighed...
It is high time for collective action, now that arts organisations have closed and activities are at a standstill. Plea for a support fund for culture, to which governments, funds and companies contribute in unison. We all notice it: live cultural offerings are at a standstill due to the coronavirus. Much has been written and talked about the importance and value of culture in recent weeks. That...
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....
Slowly but surely, the absurdity of the rescue measures for the cultural sector is sinking in. The national museums will not have to pay rent for three months for a while, but will have to pay it back retroactively once the crisis is over. Entrepreneurs can get extra support worth 4,000 euros, provided they have business premises outside their homes. Actors, directors (also freelance journalists, by the way) and artists...
It's not 50 billion, like in Germany, but it's more than nothing: the support measures Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven announced today for the hard-hit cultural sector. And, who knows, this may offer openings to do a few things completely differently after this crisis. For instance, it is great that the national museums do not have to pay rent for a while,...
UPDATE Friday, March 13, 9:30 a.m.: After the Culture Council sounded the alarm on Thursday night, the House of Representatives passed a motion urging a support package for the affected cultural sector. The text of the motion, tabled by D66, Groen Links, PvdA, Partij van de Dieren, Denk and 50Plus, reads as follows: 'The Chamber, having heard the debate, whereas meetings with...
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...
After all, we did spend just under three hours on something completely nonsensical. Stupid, of course, as we had already written ourselves on 27 November 2019 that today's little debate in the Troelstra Room of the House of Representatives would be totally pointless. Everyone already knew that too, not least the movers of the motion, including Lodewijk Asscher ...
While I was walking around Manchester with some cultural sector leaders, minister Ingrid van Engelshoven sent a letter to the House, telling it how much it would cost to enable state-subsidised arts organisations to get fair pay at the current offer. So that letter contained quite a few omissions: the minister was silent on the role played by regional and...
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...
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...
This afternoon, there will be a hearing in the Lower House on Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven's guiding principles note. That memorandum which everyone now realises is a fig leaf from her own pocket. Speakers have prepared their finest speeches, and some of it will surely go viral within the various cultural social media bubbles afterwards. I was getting a little despondent...
In the struggle for women's suffrage, the 'ordinary' housewife from Ten Boer in Groningen played just as vital a role as the widely praised Aletta Jacobs. She too walked in demonstrations, appeared in her grandmother's costume during protests and sewed a banner for the movement in her kitchen or living room. Like her peers from the rest of the Netherlands, she fought...
Our government leaders, united in Europe, have come up with something to combat the masking of corruption. It is called UBO register. The Netherlands is also going to introduce it in the near future. This has consequences, also for cultural foundations and associations. Because every organisation has to determine who is a UBO (Ultimate Beneficial Owner). This causes some complications. In the cultural sector, it is...
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...
Some people read Christmas stories over Christmas, others the interview supplements of newspapers, and a few do so with policy documents. So, quite a few people have read our Culture Minister's 'Advice Request' in the past few days. I, at least. Those who 'officially' cannot have done so are the members of the Culture Council, because the whole package came...
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...
There are quite a few petitions floating around these days. The most curious of all petitions was in the digital mailbox today. In it, the existing support institutes in the cultural sector urge the Lower House not to put money into new support institutes. In doing so, clubs such as the Landelijk Kennniscentrum Amateurkunst (LKCA), Cultuur+Ondernemen, and the Boekmanstichting put in a small but...
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...
A thousand schoolchildren a day in the House of Representatives. No less than that. That's what Culture Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven wants. Costs 4.8 million. Money that you will actually pay through your theatre ticket, the library book, the museum ticket. Because real art could have been made from that 4.8 million. It is a big question why the compulsory Second Chamber visit has to be paid for from...
Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven will 'do something' for the Metropole Orchestra this autumn. She made this known in a letter to the House of Representatives today. Literally it says: 'I will include the solution to the Metropole Orchestra's problem in my consideration around the deployment of the 2019 coalition agreement funds tranche. My consideration in this regard is that in the coalition agreement,...
Whether the artists performing on DWDD got paid for their performance. Esther Ouwehand of the PvdD did not know. She was not the only one, at the roundtable session on Wednesday 25 April on the labour market in the cultural sector. None of the MPs, fund managers, trade unionists present knew. So we asked on facebook and twitter how it was even done....
Today, the Culture Council comes out with one of the weaker advices in its existence. The Netherlands' highest cultural advisory body showed vision, leadership and boldness earlier this season with the 'Verkenning' and the 'Sectoradvies Muziek'. The exploration called for a reversal of subsidy flows, with urban regions taking the initiative. In the advice for the music sector, it broke...
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