this stark black and white ad was placed on the arts page of todays ‘new york times’, the small text below reads as follows:
‘dutch governement decimating support for the arts. severe damage will be done. dutch arts can no longer hold their unique position on the world’s stage.
disgruntled dutch artists +31 613 517 169’
calling the number lead me to a voicemail message with an email address for the group ‘dutch artists’ and urging me to get in touch… the revolution will be televised…
we had a long day session yesterday in not-so-sunny-eindhoven (with the whole jury for the DDA 2011 communication category) trying (and succeeding) to get our initial selection, made last month, shortened down to a finite list of nominees for this years ‘dutch design awards’
it was an inspiring and fun day and we left with an overall feeling that we had made the right choices and found the work that stood out the most in quality, innovation and idea… whether everyone else agrees is doubtful… fickle bunch designers, we shall see when the finalists are announced in the near future, until then i must keep my mouth shut, tough gig…
a new chairman (antoine achten) and a more demographically varied panel of jury members sitting around the table has definitely improved (and highered) the standards and provided a broader base of collective ‘design’ experience, good news for those who entered their work this year i feel… good luck to you all, fingers crossed
you are cordially being invited to produce a ignite a few colourful random smoke bombs next week
not exactly easy to do perhaps, but then again it probably looks really nice and could prove to be a pretty way to wave goodbye to a serious culture infrastructure for the netherlands
the establishment is slowly begining to manifest itself in reaction to the barbaric fashion in which the new (and apparently popular) right-wing government in holland is tackling budget cuts in the arts, the protest even seems to be coming from outside the netherlands, shown above is an infographic made by mediamatic (themselves now also under threat) which aims to give some idea of the relativity of the financial footprint of the arts compared to say, state spending, defense, jet fighters or even the national food and drink consumption…
meanwhile an international group of concerned professionals in the arts field have prepared this response to the governments provocatively titled ‘more than quality’ memorandum, read and weep…
…to be clear: Dutch professionals in the field of art and culture are aware of the fact that some cuts in funding are necessary given today’s economic situation and that a recalibration of support may be called for. Furthermore the cuts in arts funding might seem of lesser importance in light of what is happening, with the same brutality, in the fields of healthcare, social reform, education, the media and scientific research, among others. However it is in solidarity with all these realms that we raise our voices in disagreement about the sweeping, overreaching, and devastating broad cuts proposed…
with barely one day left before the end of the fotofestival naarden 2011 a second large-scale picture decided to leave early, this time one of the images by ‘ingrid baars’ was stolen, at least they chose a decent one this time…