Some of you will have heard by know, but unfortunately it seems the
Dutch government will follow UK suit.
Although the official letter by the minister has not been published in
English, some response letters for those who are about to be hit the
hardest have.
http://svenlutticken.blogspot.com/2011/06/slash-burn.html?spref=fb
and:
*letter to Mr Zijlstra and members of the Lower House*
Dear Mr. Zijlstra,
Honoured members of the Lower House,
The memorandum announced by the Secretary of State today does not signal
a new beginning, as he indicated earlier, but simply the end of an
internationally valued cultural climate, unparalleled anywhere in the
world.
For Thorbecke -- the spiritual father of the Secretary of State
Zijlstra, or at least of his party -- the policy was the result of a
long-term vision. He saw the political manager as the designer of the
age, who interprets historical lines and develops a vision for the
future on that basis. Compared with his predecessor, the measures
proposed by the Secretary of State pale into insignificance. They choose
short-term results which do not take into account historically acquired
benefits and social developments.
One prominent Dutch collector called the Secretary of State's memorandum
a new "iconoclasm". This comparison is striking and appropriate. The
field of the "visual arts" is crippled in and by this memorandum, with
fatal consequences for the public.
We live in a culture of images. Knowledge and information mainly
circulate in the form of images. Art, and the visual arts in particular,
are the perfect field for teaching us to deal with things we do not yet
know and providing us with unexpected visions and horizons. The visual
arts relate in a self-conscious and critical way to the ubiquitous
image. Therefore it is incomprehensible for a government which wants to
prepare its citizens for a promising future to decide to remove the part
of the social system which guides the public in this respect. The
extremely hard approach adopted in relation to the sector of the visual
arts (a reduction from 53.5 million to 31 million) is not supported in
this memorandum by either logical or factual arguments.
Amongst other things, the Secretary of State has decided:
- to halve the budget of the Mondriaan fund;
- to drastically reduce the number of presentation institutions in the
BIS from 11 to 6. The institutions which are no longer in the BIS cannot
go to the Mondriaan fund either, and therefore have no chance of survival;
- to no longer provide any subsidy for art magazines;
- to put a complete stop to the government subsidy for functions which
are now carried out by biennial Manifesta, SKOR | Stichting Kunst en
Openbare Ruimte (Foundation for Art in Public Spaces), the sectoral
institute Premsela, Virtual Platform, the Netherlands Media Art
Institute (NIMk);
- to put a stop to financing post-academic education for artists in the
Ateliers, Rijksakademie voor beeldende kunsten (Royal Academy for Visual
Arts), European Ceramic Work Centre and the Jan van Eyck Academy;
to only support the continued development of 50 visual artists who have
proved themselves as top talents in the next four years;
- to halve the individual basic stipends and working grants for artists,
and to COMPLETELY stop the present subsidies which serve to provide an
income.
The direct and immediate effects of these measures for the PUBLIC which
wants to see and experience contemporary art are catastrophic:
The makers, producers and artists form the basis of the cultural
infrastructure. After all, with no artists, there is no art. No
subsidies or insufficient subsidies for artists to focus professionally
and full time on creating work means that there will be no innovative work.
No post-academic education means there will be no growth of new artists
who excel and can represent the Netherlands abroad. Removing this
function will immediately lead to a reduction in the provision of Dutch
presentation institutions, so that the Netherlands will lose its
competitive position. This will result in the total impoverishment of
the art market in the Netherlands and to a weaker position of the Dutch
galleries on the international art market.
A minimal number of presentation institutions means that the new art
will not find its way to the public and will remain locked up in studios
and warehouses. The Dutch and international public in the Netherlands
will not be able to see any innovative art.
Removing an institution such as SKOR means that the presence of art in
public spaces -- democratic and by definition "anti-elitist", because it
is accessible to everyone free of charge -- will decline.
Closing an institution such as NIMk means that a valuable, partly
digital heritage -- video art and film art and media art -- will become
fragmented and will no longer be accessible to the public.
The innovative part of the field of the visual arts, which also
determines the international image of the creative Netherlands, cannot
survive without a financial injection from the state.
The current cultural system which was definitively torpedoed today has
produced artists and curators who are currently making an international
furore and are, amongst other things, a focal point in the current
biennale in Venice -- the world championships of the visual art
For example, the work of Navid Nuur has pride of place on the front
cover of the official catalogue of the Venice Biennale. Like Amalia
Pica, who lives in the Netherlands, he is taking part in the central
exhibition Illuminations. Their colleagues, Praneet Soi, Yael Bartana,
Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Han Hoogerbrugge, Aernout Mik, Libia Castro,
Olafur Olafsson, Edwin Driessens and Maria Verstappen, play a major role
in the pavilions of India, Poland, Denmark, Roma, Iceland and Dropstuff
respectively. The Dutchman Guido van der Werve can be seen at the same
time in the context of the Future Generation exhibition, where the
Ukrainian Victor Pynchuck is showing the way to the talent of the
future. It is not only Dutch artists who are a glittering presence in
Venice this year; their fellow curators are also prominently present. No
fewer than five curators working in the Netherlands are furnishing
pavilions this year. The Marres director, Guus Beumer, is responsible
for the Dutch pavilion, the BAK director Maria Hlavajova is doing the
Roma Pavilion, the freelancer Maria Rus Bojan is doing the Romanian
pavilion, the SKOR director, Fulya Erdemci, is doing the Turkish
pavilion and the Appel tutor, Henk Slager is doing the Georgian Pavilion.
The achievement of these artists and curators were made possible due to
the existence of a cultural system which has cherished experimentation,
innovation, the development of talents and an international focus up to
now, and made it possible (financially). They were able to develop their
work and their practice due to investments by the state of the
Netherlands. These investments are now bearing fruit and showing results
in an "export product" of which the Netherlands can be proud. This
system is recognized and celebrated all over the world because of its
efficiency and future-oriented approach.
The Secretary of State's memorandum shows that the cabinet is thinking
only of what is producing immediate results today, and not about what
can generate "value for the future". We all know that there is not only
a today, but also a tomorrow. We would like to see that in tomorrow's
Netherlands there will be still be a great deal of contemporary art and
historical heritage which can be seen frequently. We hope that the Lower
House shares this desire and will oppose a policy that looks only at today.
The boards of directors, managements and representatives of:
De Zaak Nu -- on behalf of the presentation institutions
SKOR | Stichting Kunst en Openbare Ruimte (Foundation for Art in Public
Spaces)
NIMk -- Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst (Netherlands Media Art
Institute)
The post-academic institutions -- de Ateliers, Rijksakademie and the Jan
van Ecyk Academy
The collector Martijn Sanders and the patrons Maurice van Vaalen and Rob
Defares
The artists' action group, 'Schuilen in het Rijks'
PLease sign the petition:
http://petities.nl/petitie/bezuinigen-op-cultuur-zonder-alle-feiten-nooit
Op 11-6-11 10:39, claire welsby schreef:
> APOLOGIES FOR CROSS POSTING
> --------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> I recently attended a discussion about the state of media art UK at
> FutureEverything 2011, organised by CODA. The discussion was prompted by recent
> funding cuts and the concerning number of media art organisations that had
> lost out.
>
> The group also proactively about how people and organisations active in the
> UK media art movement might work better together in the future, to improve
> the visibilty and understanding of media arts practice in the UK, and create
> a stronger voice for media art, particularly amongst policy makers and
> funders. My post covers the key issues that we discussed, and raises some
> questions about what happens next.
>
> I thought it might be an interesting read for this mail-list. There's some
> nice images of art included too!
> http://lifeartus.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/its-been-a-really-tough-year-but-whats-next-for-media-art-uk/
>
> Claire
|