The National Opera & Ballet is among the showpieces of Dutch cultural policy. And rightly so. Like the Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Rijksmuseum, the opera and dance company is among the absolute world's best. That comes with a price tag. A hefty price tag. In the case of The National Opera: €24,420,000, in the case of The National Ballet: €6,950,000. Soon there will be a...
OK, it is still more than former tolerant partner PVV, which managed to cram the entire draft election programme onto a single A4 sheet. But in the half-page that the VVD, the country's largest party, spends on culture, it is actually worse. Here the Wilders and Zijlstra-inspired rancorous line against anything that even smells of Dutch culture is still abundantly clear....
For now, an unusual state of affairs in the field of cultural governance. Unsatisfactory also because of the many questions it raises: Wim Pijbes rather unexpectedly announces his departure as chief director of the Rijksmuseum on 1 March 2016, opting for a director's position at a new private museum (Voorlinden) owned by billionaire Van Caldenborgh on 1 July 2016. Equally unexpectedly,...
The effects of the previous cabinet's arts cuts are finally becoming clear. The Performing Arts Fund today announced the winners and losers of the battle for four-year subsidies. From 2017, the Dutch art world will be a lot smaller, more meagre and poorer than it was until 2013. Big names are gone, traditions dismantled, while what is new faces an extremely uncertain existence.
The historic Doelenzaal in Amsterdam, home to Internationaal Danstheater, will have flats. Those currently sitting there will have to leave. Doelenzaal sold The users of the Doelenzaal can all leave: International Dance Theatre, Omscholingsfonds Dansers, Dancing on the Edge, Musicians without Borders and Windmill Film. Because the building's new owner wants flats. The Doelenzaal, a design by architects Beirer and Bekkers who...
The Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (RMO) in Leiden reopens on Tuesday 15 December after a major renovation and asbestos remediation. The museum immediately unpacks with a completely revamped Classics department: Greeks, Romans and Etruscans. There are also three small temporary exhibitions. Anyone entering the hall of the museum will not immediately notice any difference: fortunately, the Egyptian Taffeta temple is still just standing on...
It is a niche sector in marketing, but cultural marketing is fast becoming mature. In recent years, cultural organisations have had to be creative and inventive with increasingly limited budgets. This often manifested itself in sensational marketing of performances, exhibitions and festivals. Not without results: these five marketing cases have bravely drawn attention last cultural season....
Twenty-two years after Jurassic Park the fourth instalment of the well-known dinosaur films enters Dutch cinemas on Thursday 11 June. In Jurassic World we see in 3D how the dreamed theme park with live dinosaurs is finally realised, and how things go grandly wrong when overambitious showmen start genetically manipulating dinosaurs. In each new volume, the plot is thinner, the special effects become more dominant and the scientific pretensions less so, but no one can deny that the Jurassic Park-films have revolutionised. Also in the arts.
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Everything comes together in Enschede. Revenue models that appear to be based on air, but are defended to the hilt by administrators. Jubilant reports on rising museum visits, but smaller museums are going under. Aldermen acting out of cultural interests, but then playing residents against each other to make draconian decisions. All this to disguise the ruins of Rutte I. A quick recap:...
What is already going on on a small scale in Groningen, Enschede, Zaltbommel, Amersfoort, Gorinchem and Vlaardingen, is threatening to happen nationwide as well: cultural institutions falling over while politicians look on helplessly. According to the Council for Culture, the situation is alarming: 'Institutions are draining their own funds, cultural funds are maintaining schemes by drawing on reserves. We therefore make the urgent...
Bring 50 distinguished and cross-disciplinary artists together and things will crackle tremendously. That will be the thinking behind the new Academy of Arts. The installation of 16 new, high-profile members already gave a taste of this. Actor Gijs Scholten van Aschat (board member) and visual artist Barbara Visser (president) expressed themselves a little cautiously a while ago about what the Akademie...
With 'The oasis of Matisse', the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam has put on a magnificent exhibition. Sixty years after there was last a major retrospective of Matisse in the Netherlands, his work is back on display in all its glory. So alongside 'Late Rembrandt' at the Rijksmuseum, there is another blockbuster in the capital. The thousands of visitors who attended the...
Willem Jeths (1959) is one of the most successful Dutch composers. Through his enormous craftsmanship and drive, he manages to create his own sound world, which is surprising yet accessible. His work is regularly performed at home and abroad and has appeared on many CDs. In 2014, he received the Amsterdam Prize for the Arts and later that year he was appointed
82% cut in Overijssel's culture budget No, the VVD did not become the largest party in Overijssel in the last provincial elections, the PvdA attracted 1.6% more voters, but if there is a province where Halbe Zijlstra's nationally initiated policy had an effect, it was that province. Residents soon noticed this, but research by consultancy firm
Late Rembrandt at the Rijksmuseum. Above all, that means lots of people. Long lines of admirers, who know they are (going to) see high level. Top level. And for that, everyone is willing to wait. The PR machine has done its job and now it's join the long queue and then shuffle past the many gazes, rakish lines and brushstrokes. Rembrandt (1606-1669), in his countless...
The bad news is: most myths about Carthage are nonsense. The good news is, the reality is at least as fascinating. Until 10 May 2015, the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (RMO) in Leiden is showing the multifaceted history of a port city in present-day Tunisia, and once formidable rival of the Roman Empire. It simultaneously offers a glimpse...
For fine art, you go to the museum, especially in Amsterdam and especially now that all the museums have reopened. But there is also another option: the opera. There you see visual art that doesn't fit in any museum, not even in the largest room of the Rijksmuseum. Take the Greek sculptor Jannis Kounellis. From today, his work is a...
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.' Marathon interviewAfter the uproar surrounding Melle Daamen's opinion piece on arts policy, we were invited for a 'conversation about everything' with Joop Daalmeijer, chairman of the Council for Culture. The conversation...
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.' Marathon interviewAfter the uproar surrounding Melle Daamen's opinion piece on arts policy, we were invited to a 'conversation about...
Vlindertje Smit and the service of what is dead It is an orderly, clean space, not unsociable, despite the pieces of horse bone that dominate the studio in their showcases. Visual artist Butterfly Smit prepares animals and parts of animals. Thinking back to the publicity storm that British artist Damien Hirst stirred up with his preserved-animal artworks, you might expect Butterfly Smit to...
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...
This is rather fantastic. The Tate Museum in London offers the opportunity to wander the halls at night, in the dark. To view everything on your own time. By controlling robots from your couch. Viewing artworks online in museums has been possible for a long time. We have the Google Art Project, we have our own Rijksmuseum that...
Dancing in front of 58 world leaders, and of course Obama himself. As a thread, as an opening act. Just imagine the assignment. For three months, Conny Janssen Danst secretly worked on this mission. Until Monday 24 March the happened.
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