[spectre] Digimag 66 - July/August 2011: "A new Dark Age for Dutch Culture"

[Redazione Digicult]

Digicult presents:

A NEW DARK AGE FOR DUTCH CULTURE
by "Sonic Acts" Festival

This text was written specifically for the new Digimag 66 - July/August 
2011, and is signed by the entire staff of "Sonic Acts" Festival in 
Amsterdam: Arie Altena, Lucas van der Velden, Martijn van Boven, Annette 
Wolfsberger, Nicky Assmann, Femke Herregraven, Gideon Kiers

Link to the Italian version: 
http://www.digicult.it/digimag/article.asp?id=2113
Link to the English version: coming soon...

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The letter ‘Meer dan kwaliteit’ (‘More than Quality’) by the State Secretary 
for Culture, Halbe Zijlstra (VVD, People's Party for Freedom and Democracy) 
arrived in the electronic mailboxes of Dutch art and cultural institutes on 
Friday, 10 June 2011. It stated that €200 million would be brutally slashed 
from the arts and culture budget, starting as early as 1 January 2013. 
Apparently, Zijlstra, who admits that he lacks any understanding of art and 
culture, has blatantly ignored all the recommendations made to him on this 
subject, including those from the Arts Council (the government’s official 
advisory body). Subsidies for a limited number of ‘world-class institutes’ 
such as the Nederlandse Opera, which already receive a substantial portion 
of the existing budget, will be maintained. As far as Zijlstra is concerned, 
most of the other institutes can disappear – they will no longer be able to 
rely on structural support from the government. This not only applies to all 
the production houses for theatres, half of the orchestras, the 
Muziekcentrum Nederland (formed in a recent merger), the Foundation Art and 
Public Domain (SKOR), renowned exhibition spaces and research facilities for 
visual art such as De Appel, but also to the entirely new media sector with 
its internationally acclaimed institutes such as V2_, the Netherlands Media 
Art Institute (NIMk), Mediamatic, WORM, the Waag Society and STEIM, as well 
as to the Rijksakademie, de Ateliers and the Jan van Eyck Academy. Support 
for critical-analytical journals such as Open and Metropolis M, and for the 
literary magazines, including De Gids, will be discontinued. Furthermore, 
the budget that will be allocated to project subsidies, i.e., for individual 
artists, one-off projects and festivals, will be more than halved. Only 
‘international world-class talent’ and art that has already proven itself 
will remain.

This is not merely the austerity plan that was anticipated from a 
centre-right minority cabinet that is at the beck and call of the populist 
PVV (Party for Freedom): it is a direct attack on art, an attack on anything 
that does not fit into a market economy, on anything that refuses to, or 
cannot be, adapted to a populist-tinted, neo-liberal mindset. It marks the 
end of a cultural sector that was birthed with a great deal of effort and 
difficulty. His letter does include a few obligatory sentences that could 
fool a hasty reader into thinking that there actually is a coherent vision 
behind this policy, but each substantive phrase is contradicted by the 
proposed regulations. The letter brims with resentment towards innovative 
and investigative art, towards groundbreaking art, art that cannot survive 
if it is only supported by the market. The letter expresses contempt for 
artists’ works, contempt for the wealth of experiences that art can provide, 
and contempt for people who enjoy it. The contributions that art makes to 
society and innovation have been completely ignored. The idea that 
sustaining art and culture is in the public interest is negated; in fact, 
the notion of the public interest is ignored altogether. The right for works 
to exist is reserved only for those works that ‘the market’ – whatever that 
might be – or wealthy patrons will support. Zijlstra’s letter is nothing 
more than a dictatorial ruling. We are being spurred to our downfall by 
populist neo-liberalist policies.

There are absolutely no policy reasons for the €200 million of cutbacks. 
This deal was struck with the PVV in exchange for its support in parliament 
of the minority cabinet. The intention is to inflict irreparable damage on 
an entire profession. Zijlstra is striving to decimate and eliminate this 
professional group’s creative, innovative and critical potential. Not a 
single member of his own party (VVD), or anyone from its coalition partner, 
the CDA (Christian Democratic Party) has opposed him. As far as they are 
concerned, traditional art is merely the superfluous ornamentation of a 
society. Contemporary art is labelled as alienating, and even, although no 
one actually says it out loud, as ‘degenerate art’.

Prioritising world-class talent implies that the State Secretary makes a 
distinction between ‘art that has already proven itself’ and all other art. 
This is illogical and downright ignorant. Art is in a state of constant 
change, it reflects on a society and the time in which we live, it is 
frequently at odds with accepted norms and values, and reveals new and 
unexpected perspectives. Zijlstra is of the opinion that there is only room 
for art from the distant past, for cultural heritage such as centuries-old 
ballet, opera, classical music and visual art. But classical art only has 
meaning in the context of new art, they enhance each other and validate each 
other’s existence.

This means that from 1 January 2013 no money and thus no time will be made 
available to create unique or ambitious artworks, for fundamental research, 
for developing complex technological works, for art that critically examines 
our complicated world, for artworks that enrich society and people in 
sometimes unparalleled ways. What remains is ‘music for the millions’; all 
the rest will be amateur art. Artists who are driven by their craft will 
have to create their art in their spare time. Cultural vitality will 
disappear, as will the economic vitality that is driven by art. We can 
forget about innovation and international allure entirely.

Of course, the situation as it stands at the moment can and should be 
criticised. For a long time many of those who are active in the sector have 
been dissatisfied with the ways in which funds are allocated. But Zijlstra’s 
plan has brought an abrupt end to this discussion, as well as to the 
discussion about how funds can best be used to stimulate culture. He has 
opted for the simplest solution: get rid of it all.

Reactions to the proposals have been manifold, and they have naturally 
provoked a rebellion by artists and the employees at the affected 
institutes. It has also inflamed a furious backlash from private funding 
organisations, wealthy right-wing culture aficionados and patrons – after 
all, Zijlstra’s intention is that they should fund the arts sector. During 
the parliamentary hearings they repeatedly reminded Zijlstra that the 
Netherlands is a country where private sponsorship of the arts has always 
been in short supply, and that there are almost no financial incentives for 
patrons. They stated resolutely that they feel betrayed, burdened with the 
impossible task of saving art, and declared in no uncertain terms that the 
government has revealed itself to be an untrustworthy partner. In their 
opinion, the proposed policy is offensive, irresponsible and 
counter-productive. Rick van der Ploeg, a leading economist, a former State 
Secretary of Culture and a proponent of professionalising the economic 
aspects of art, wrote in the NRC (national newspaper) that it is “a measure 
of their brazen brutality that this cabinet wants to be remembered for its 
irreversible butchering of a closely-knit, high-quality and multi-faceted 
network of cultural opportunities in our country,” and continued, “The 
policy being proposed lacks the standards of quality which are necessary in 
a democratic, constitutional society.” This sentence is worth reading twice.

It should be a cause of concern for everyone that a minority cabinet with 
the feeble support of a parliamentary majority of only one seat would take 
such draconian and drastic measures without paying any heed to the other 
half, which has only one seat less than the ruling coalition. Zijlstra 
shamelessly admits that the proposals have no basis in fact, and display a 
total lack of sympathy for the field. This undemocratic attitude only 
compounds the suspicions about this government’s much more drastic proposals 
for cutbacks in health care, education and pension schemes, and it 
underscores the steps they are (not) taking to discipline the financial 
sector.

Despite all the government’s hollow arguments, nobody has actually explained 
why these cultural cutbacks are necessary. All those who were asked to make 
recommendations about the plan advised against it in the strongest possible 
terms, and all of the unsolicited recommendations were negative too. There 
is unanimous agreement that the plans will have disastrous consequences. A 
staggering number of institutes will have to be closed and there will be 
very little funding for artists. There will be a wide-scale destruction of 
capital, costs will not be offset by the profits, and the Netherlands will 
be downgraded to a cultural backwater. It is clear what the implications of 
this will be for the cultural and economic business climate: international 
companies or professionals working in the knowledge industry will no longer 
consider basing themselves in the cultural wasteland that the Netherlands 
will become.

The government has disdainfully cast aside all the recommendations and is 
bulldozing ahead with its plans. The only possible conclusion that can be 
drawn is that they are intent on the wide-scale eradication of art and 
culture in the Netherlands. Halving the project subsidies – in an arts 
budget that was one of the lowest in Europe, even before the cutbacks – 
means that art in the Netherlands will cease to exist in its current form 
and diversity. After 600 years of growth and progress that started in the 
Renaissance, the Netherlands will once again find itself in a Dark Age.