This is a letter from composer Paul Oomen, where he writes down his worries concerning the government funding plans.

What do you think about the government plans concerning funding? What do you think about the artists’role and the relation between artists and cultural institutions? We invite you to react on these matters

Dear minister Plasterk,

With great interest I took notice of the late developments around the new direction the government intends with its cultural policy and the reactions of artists and institutions. First of all I wish to compliment you with a sharp translation of the reality in society and arts into your new subsidiary plans. You seem to intend a shift towards a larger responsibility for society to nurture and foster arts, and therewith you place as well the artist and the cultural institutions for a serious challenge. I write this letter because I believe your plans to be promising, but yet I wish to nuance and question the intentions and execution of this policy by the ministry.

It worries me when you write:
“ Art does not pay service to any political goal or whatever power in society. She only pays service to herself.” (NRC Handelsblad, 23th of June 2007)

Art does not exist solely for its own reasons, but instead has, in her centuries of existing history parallel to religious, political and materialistic realities, always embodied and kept alive the human ideal. The art is the only true example of a balance between the spiritual and the material. She shows us the ideal consciousness, and the confrontation with its appearance influences a positive development of the perfection of our personal conscience. In the arts, the personal struggle is expressed that every individual faces in life, and the artist is appointed to realize this process in the world. The unawarded and unselfish artistic act reflects the true meaning of life. Herewith art fulfills a by now almost forgotten or unnoticed task – she remembers us how we suppose to exist.

The government shows in her new plans clearly a retreat from her appearance as commissioner, and wants to research and stimulate the developments of arts in society by different means. I share this vision with you, but as well expect from you a full awareness of the spiritual importance of art. A realization that art has to stay alive by itself and not by the government, needs accompaniment by accepting the responsibility that you carry politically for the spiritual value of art in society, which is never apprehensible by the amount of audience or financial means. You show unawareness of this spiritual responsibility when you are quoted in the press:
 
“Being an artist is a free choice. The hard reality is that you have to be able to survive from your work on the long term. Artists don’t have to engage in the market. But if they can’t make ends meet from creations that they find worthy themselves, there is the choice to for instance start painting cows because there is a market for it.” (NRC Handelsblad, 27th of March 2008)
 
Unfortunately you picture the market for art as a known fact insensitive to influence. Every artist dreams about an optimal communication with his audience, and hopes for widespread acknowledgment for his work. I can assure you when artists gain the means for it, many will apply it for this cause with full conviction. The belief that there is somebody receptive for the artistic experience the artist envisions, is the only reason for art coming to being. It is the only truth the artist can console with the painful self-sacrifice that the realization of the artistic process demands. The problem is not the artist or the market, but a too limited space for artists in society to operate independently.

The relation of the artist towards his audience is highly paradoxical. Although he wishes to reach as many people as possible, the artist is essentially predetermined to his personal interior vision on life, instead of any exterior reality. Isn’t the reflection of life we carry in ourselves the only honest perspective on the world that we humans possess? It is known that the painter Cezanne, during his life acknowledged and praised by his colleagues, was deeply unhappy because his neighbour didn’t appreciate his paintings. And still he couldn’t change his style of painting. For art it is true that as soon as the artist disconnects himself from his inner experience to create, but instead starts to paint cows because there is a market for it, art ceases to exist as art. She becomes nothing but an empty consumption product, far attached from her essential meaning. I don’t think such a vision should be carried out by the minister of culture, who wishes to stimulate the flourishing of the arts in his country, and therewith carries in fact a responsibility for the spiritual well-being of an entire nation.

The hard reality is that the artist cannot do any concession to so called predetermined wishes of his audience, if those exist at all. Every untrue expression from the artist triggered by reasons outside of his personal perception, diminish the artistic value of his work, also in front of an audience that is interested in a true artistic experience. And on the individual level it proves that the reaction of the audience, regardless knowledge level, cultural background or social surrounding, is always more interested, more surprising and more refined than you could expect on the basis of any market analysis. There is no a priori market that is waiting for art as a consumption product. It only requires a collective effort of artists, producers and government to shape the actual market effectively.

I fully share your opinion that the artist should search more intensively and more independently to his own audience and own investors, and in doing so cannot expect the government to pay ones daily living. I am convinced that every artwork created out of an inner necessity of the artist has the potential to find its own audience and its own financiers that will seem to fit naturally to the content and vision expressed in the artwork. But the social and economic realization of a work of art can only be preceded by a spiritual process of the artist. Therefore every financial and public success of an artwork is dependent on an unconditional sacrifice of an artist’s time and energy, which is by no means guaranteed to be paid after by the government, or in fact by anybody.  Artists who think this have clearly lost sight of the importance and responsibility of their task.

From the government can be expected that she puts everything into effort to support and stimulate the market, that indeed the artist should discover and conquer himself. This starts with implementing a moral and spiritual awareness of arts in the future audiences. For this a far-reaching application of arts in education is required. Only by establishing a larger cultural, creative and even artistic consciousness with children from the youngest age possible, a society will be able on the long term to really benefit from a market for true art that is waiting for an audience that carries the desire for a real artistic experience in their genes. Secondly the government is responsible for a beneficial climate for artists who want to invest in that what they truly believe in and will try to realize whatever it takes. For these artists the doors should be wide open to operate on a larger scale.

The problem is that there is hardly any space for the independently enterprising artist to operate in. My opinion is that the responsibility of a flourishing artistic movement in society lies with the artists, institutions should follow the developments and present a flexible adaption to what the artist requires in realizing his work in a public way. But the state of affairs in Holland is exactly opposite. Facilitating institutions are in fact gathering all states money, and are therewith appointed substitute policy makers that set a norm the artist has to adjust to. Apart from a complete off-circuit there is hardly any other way for an artist that to adapt to the conditions of institutions, or become an institution yourself. With your new policy you intend to subsidize institutions according to the amount of audience they reach. This claim is fully justifiable and it is high time institutions will turn back to doing that what they exist for – working to create a large public scope for the artist’s work. With their large states capital many institutions have the means to reach a seemingly enormous possibility to interest audience on a broad base for arts, and yet exactly in this assignment in many cases they fail.
 
This failing connection to the audience is the result of an increasing disinterest of institutions to engage with the true perception of the artist. The great problem of our time is the lack of space that the artist has to give form to all the content that he finds. There is a surplus of form the artist over and over again has to adapt to. This inflexible and narrow surrounding the artist has to deal with to publicly release his work leads to an impoverishment of the communicative power that art has by nature, and it effects the possibilities for society to share in its actual spiritual qualities negatively.

If there is anything the current society has a severe lack of, it is spirituality. Not spirituality in the shape of religions or group therapies, but an enlargement of the personal perception on life. The artist is the one who can give shape to this necessity. I imagine a city of the future where artistry is a direct, natural and more fundamental part of life itself. Art will be able to take place everywhere and anytime. It is the artist, aided by an uninterrupted will to connect the content of life to sounds, images and words that can provide for the most diverse of individuals in our society a new reason to gather together. The artwork becomes a contemporary ritual, an event where one is confronted with ones true self, reflected in the collective experience with others.
 
But how far away is this image from the way cultural institutions try to maintain their subsidies with an exclusively consumer-aimed audience seduction! It should be the task of cultural institutions to protect the artists’ inspiration, and turn this energy into public engagement. Instead art is rather presented as a tasty product because there is a market that needs to be conquered to justify the necessity of art. Considering the fact that the theatres, museums and concert halls complain en masse about decreasing numbers of audience it proves that art as a consumption product is simply hard to sell, and will be taken out of market altogether soon. In this light it is remarkable that Joop van den Ende productions, completely independent from states subsidies and highly ‘marketable’, has recently decided to take all theatre-productions out of business because the low market profit does not weight up the artistic interest anymore.

Only the artist himself, pursued by his tantalizing inspiration, can create the excellent conditions for his work to exist and can bring together his audience on fair grounds, whether small or large.  A change can only take place if the artists themselves are in turn to guide the developments of a policy. For this the theaters, concert halls and museums should be to their disposal unconditionally, and are furthermore just one of the many places the artist  can present his work, if the specific facilities these places offer are favorable. The real problem for an open communication between artists and audience is the paralyzing dependency on existing frames and form, which makes it more difficult for audience and artist to reach one another.

If you truly expect the artist to conquer his own market, I suppose you have to take one step further in your reformation of the arts subsidies. Let’s say for instance at least half of the €430 million available for culture is actually spent on ‘new’ art productions. This money should go directly to the artists instead to festivals and institutions. Not because the artist wants to depend on the state, but because it is your political responsibility to support the arts. The money that is now spent on the maintenance of institutions, can then be used for the direct organization required for the realization of the artwork, its way of presenting, the production and its promotion, possibly in collaboration with other artists who can form festivals and initiatives on the basis of newly find and not predetermined artistic content. In this process, the cultural institution takes a no more and no less important role of knowledge exchange centre and executive producer serving the public realization of the artists’ dreams. Only if the space for artists to operate individually will enlarge, the artist will be able to design the market, its specific audience and in fact the spiritual direction of the world.

I kindly ask you to take these observations into consideration, and dare you to find practical form for the enlargement of the artists playground in society, which is as I assume above all our common interest.

High regards,

Paul Oomen  l  composer l  artistic entrepreneur