Anneke Auer, Autonomous Visual Artist
Rotterdam, NL
Intro: the Dutch situation
The Netherlands has mostly been a Calvinistic country, but also one of trade, merchants and modern capitalism. This had a great influence on the development and status quo of the visual arts.
Iconoclastic Storm
Calvinists destroyed the art in hundreds of catholic churches and cloisters during the 'Iconoclastic Storm' in 1566 because the bible told them that it was forbidden to worship other deities and statues (saints) than God. It was a rebellion against catholic wealth and rule by the aristocracy (who thought they had to pay too much tax) and the people (there was a famine) together. I think from this moment on, the visual arts in the Netherlands have been used as a political tool.
The Golden Age/Enlightenment
After the wrath of Spanish catholic Philip II (the Eighty Year War) the Netherlands turned into a republic and florished, also in the area of the arts, science and literature. So did the artists, who found new commissioners in the many wealthy merchants, and Dutch painting became internationally famous. Because of the commissions from the private sector and the rise of fame for individual artists, they became more autonomous and experimented with and came to develop an individual style. There was a sense of religious and political tolerance, and a 'social melting pot' emerged in this first modern economy.
Modernism & institutionalisation
In World War II, the Nazis also introduced the Kulturkammer in the Netherlands: if one joined, and complied to the artistic aryan standards set by the Nazi regime, the artist was sure of commissions and a regular income. If not, one's work was primitive and distorted (Entartete Kunst) and one had to go and do something else for a living. Oddly enough, this kind artistic policy found fertile ground once more in the Netherlands - read on.
Although Dutch artists were internationally famous for their experiments and innovation in autonomous art (Van Gogh, Mondrian, Cobra, De Kooning, etc.), at home it was a struggle to be recognised and respected. After the war until the late sixties, a lot of reknown Dutch artists emigrated abroad, simply because modern and avant garde art in the Netherlands was looked upon with despise: a luxury plaything for the rich elite, incredibly ugly and something a child can accomplish.
Being an autonomous visual artist in the nineties, I still noticed a huge difference between the Netherlands and other countries. Abroad I was treated with respect for my work, paid accordingly, and even got a thank you afterwards. At home is was always a hassle to get anything done, to get things financed, and everything was mostly focussed on the (financial) success of the museum, gallery or institute - not what my work was about. I felt like being a tool for other, non-artistic purposes. The attitude towards art still is that the artist should be grateful to be *allowed* to show his work somewhere. Most galleries are only concerned with the public attention and provisions they can generate, and no costs of transport and such are covered by them. An exhibition in a gallery, and more so in a community institute or museum (because you can't sell there), will cost the artist money, instead of generating it. The standard reply is: "Yes, but it's free publicity and it looks good in your curriculum vitae." Publicity and a curriculum vitae the artist needs to apply for art commissions and subsidies.
Government subsidies
In the late sixties, under a social government, a liberal and culturally aware society, and a decade of economic wealth, the government thought it was important to preserve and develop modern and Dutch art and culture, with a large focus on the visual autonomous arts. It recognised the importance of avant garde and renewal in art, the experiment, and that this was hard to accomplish on an attic in the weekends. So, they invented the 'BKR Agreement': after an election by a special jury (artists, art union people and legislators) the artist received a steady income by selling some of his work to the government annually. From that moment on, the arts were almost fully subsidized by the state - if you had the quality they desired. When I ask colleages from an older generation how that time was, they all reply: "Absolute paradise!".
Meanwhile, warehouses full of "BKR art" multiplied. And the visual arts became a social issue: because of the traditional Dutch distrust towards modern art, in the eighties the Dutch government started a program to educate the people and to give them the opportunity to aquire a piece of art that would not hurt their wallet: the Artoteek arose. The Artoteek was a communal library for works of art, and for a small annual fee people could rent a painting, or lease it if desired. It seemed like a good solution because the art in the BKR warehouses was put to good use, and the enjoyment of visual arts became accessible for everyone. After the BKR Agreement, the Artoteek started to buy the work of local artists (again, with the same kind of jury as the BKR), as a social measure to help the artist survive.
It's the economy, stupid...
The final goal of the Artoteek, as well as all the other art subsidy measures, was to create a market for art in the Netherlands to ultimately make artists independent from goverment grants and subsidies. Optimism proved too great: in no way you can sell modern art to the Dutch Calvinist merchant, and after the period of economic wealth the dream collapsed. And, the Artoteek made a giant mistake: it also sold cheap subscriptions to companies, who were used to buy art, to let them fill their (CEO) walls with artistic status quo. And no company in its right mind would ever buy a work of art from an artist again. Today there are still only two or three Dutch art collectors of importance. There are thousands of artists, but apart from a handful, most of them rely on goverment subsidies and other jobs to make a living - including myself.
The last five years have been disasterous for the Dutch independent visual artist because of the forced privitisation of cultural institutes that used to support the autonomy of artists. The idea is that art and culture are simply "too expensive", that an artist is a lazy and self-righteous freeloader, and that it was about time that he started to create work that the People would like to see. Because in that case, he would surely sell his work and make a living. And if he didn't, he had to go and do something else for a living, like cleaning offices. The Artoteek that used to support local artists has been turned into a commercial "shop". The first thing they did was to sack the juries and replace them with their own employees, and for instance stop aquiring work in black and white, because it didn't sell very well. No matter the quality.
The Rotterdam situation is a good example of using art as a political tool. "The first thing to do is to break down the Labour party bastion," became the motto after a right wing majority in city hall, and that regrettably included the financial support of Rotterdam artists. The institutes that took care of this were closed and subsidies were moved to one single "counter" (one could call it a contemporary 'Kulturkammer') in city hall. The new alderman for Art & Transportation (an army guy with no artistic or cultural experience whatsoever) said he liked musicals and compared art with sport and entertainment. Designs for art commissions were now being judged by a small group of civil servants, and the work needed to reflect the ideas of city hall and serve its purpose. Which is not artistic expression, renewal and experiment, or even quality, but in the area of serving 'the needs of the people', like safety, fighting crime, social cultural pasttime in "problem zones", education, but also the gentrification of neigbourhoods that were recently barred for people with small paychecks. There is a 'cultural revolution' going on and the outlook is a stalinist one: state approved art is sponsored, not for it's quality, but for it's political subserviency.
No one asks themselves what it takes to be an artist. I learned what it takes, and worked accordingly. It takes time, practise and experiment. It takes independence and the means to work and practise freely in a studio. But with trying to salvage my autonomy in the current situation, I had to give up art. That is, I have to work so much (as a graphic and web designer) that there is no time left for 'free' art. Also, my work isn't 'city hall friendly' because it is mostly conceptual. Of course I'm free to make whatever I like - as a hobby.
Until this day, the belief that there is a market of a kind for art in the Netherlands remains a stubborn but useful fantasy that only serves those who turned back the clock half a century, when contemporary art was ugly, useless, and the work of a distorted mind.
"For the artist does not produce for the artist, he produces for the people, just as everybody else does! And we are going to take care that it will be the people who from now on will again be called upon as judges over its art.... For an art that cannot count on the most joyful and most heartfelt assent of the healthy, broad masses of the people, but relies on small, partly interested, partly disingenuous cliques, is intolerable." -- Adolf Hitler, quoted in Peter-Klaus Schuster, ed., Die "Kunststadt" Munchen 1937: Nationalsozialismus und "Entartete Kunst," Munich, 1987, 251
