Page 18 - Studio International - February 1972

Report from outside its traditional context. the low value of the subsidies, the imposed

Within this rather wide range some aims restrictions on the artist's selling a work and the
Holland were published, in part clearly connected with marriage bar on women artists. Still worse is the
the former exhibition. The foundation will try fact that the kontraprestatieregeling, like
for instance to save and conserve the projects unemployment benefit, is dealt with by the
Broken Circle by Robert Smithson and Ministry of Welfare, and is not part of
Observatory by Robert Morris. Another plan is purposeful cultural politics. Apparently the
to enable the Belgian artist Panamarenko to ranks of artists requiring help of this kind
continue the construction of his aircraft. worries the Dutch government. Yet they don't
There are also some totally new projects being concede that their policy has failed, they
developed, one of which is the creation of a kind simply apply their economies instead. The
of common collection, in which as many people number of artists, for instance, is to be
as possible can participate. The collection will diminished by making a minimum age-limit
consist of works that are not usually acquired of 25. The BBK opposes the
by museums, either because they don't want kontraprestatieregeling as such, boycotts
them, or because they don't have the necessary discussions and obstructs gatherings.
accommodation or funds at their disposal. If In the exhibition season that is already half
this succeeds these people will decide on how over, a growing appreciation of certain areas of
and where their common property will be realism is becoming apparent here, as elsewhere.
located, just like the shareholders in a company In September/November 1971 the Stedelijk
or rather like the voters in a democracy. The Museum in Amsterdam had a large exhibition
initiators are proposing to buy in the first place (which afterwards travelled to Düsseldorf and
The Paintings by Gilbert and George, which Brussels) of works by Co Westerik, who
would prevent these triptychs from being received the State Prize for the visual arts. This
scattered over several collections. Needless to spring and autumn the Stedelijk Museum will
say, participation in the activities of 'Sonsbeek organize retrospective exhibitions of Melle and
Unlimited' is not reserved only for the Dutch; Pyke Koch. The Van Abbe Museum in
it's open to anybody. Eindhoven, in its exhibition of 'Relativity in
The Artists' Union BBK, which has been Realism' (January/March 1972) tries to
most active in looking out for and fighting define the change in taste towards realistic
injustices in cultural politics for several years, art (which is, in my opinion, not free from
has been having a busy time since there is a fashion, for as far as our country is concerned I
Christian-Liberal coalition government in can't see that there is a new generation of realists
office. The government tries to counter on a high level, the aforementioned artists being
inflation with cuts in expenditure. As can be in their forties, like Westerik, or even sixties and
expected these don't affect defence, for seventies, like Melle and Koch). A second topic
instance, but mostly education and culture. this season is architecture, not to be seen only
One of the magic words used by the government as one of the beaux arts, but also as a force at
is profijtbeginsel, a principle which would work in the environment. In the Stedelijk
ensure that the consumer pays directly for every Museum a memorial exhibition was held on
Because my report on the exhibition 'Sonsbeek public service, in the field of sport, recreation, Gerrit Rietveld, the greatest Dutch architect
1971' (Studio International, September 1971) youth work, art and education. As a result, of the century, who was very well aware of the
had been shortened somewhat, its tone was library membership, theatre and museum latter aspect of architecture. The Van Abbe
too exclusively himmelhoch jauchzend, to my admission, school and university fees and so on Museum started its season with an important
taste. In the lines that were omitted I expressed will be considerably increased. There will be documentary exhibition 'Building for Living
my objections to the set-up of the exhibition, its alterations in policy with regard to the visual 1920-1940' (on Dutch architecture only);
character being very heterogeneous and arts as well. Not only will the subsidies for during March/May it will house a most
undetermined. museums be lowered, there will also be promising exhibition called 'The Street'.
At the same time I called it a useful economies in the so-called kontraprestatieregeling: The retrospective exhibitions of Man Ray
experiment to arrive at alternatives for the a unique but none the less frustrating form of and Mark Rothko in the Boymans-Van
static and restrictive institutions that museums support for practising artists in return for some Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam, last autumn,
in fact are, even museums of modern art. So it of their works, which are at best placed in were highlights; the exhibition of Barnett
was a piece of luck that the exhibition had an schools and government buildings, but often Newman at the Stedelijk Museum (March/May)
immediate follow-up after it was closed on end up in depots. This system, devised after will certainly be one. One of the most important
15 August 1971. In September a foundation the Second World War, was meant to be a Dutch artists, Ad Dekkers, has a large exhibition
called 'Sonsbeek Unlimited' was initiated, not temporary help for artists in difficult years. at the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague
by the organizers of the exhibition itself, but Initially only some 200 artists asked for the (January/March) and afterwards in several
by some private persons, collectors, artists, support, but during the last years their number museums in Germany.
critics and others, who were very much has increased to some 1000, which is at least Finally I mention a forthcoming exhibition
intrigued by the problems posed by 'Sonsbeek 8o per cent of all Dutch artists. For most of them that may be very interesting, especially because
1971'. it is not a temporary but a permanent means the works to be shown are not too well known.
The purpose of the foundation is, on the one of living and doing their work. 'Contemporaries of Vincent van Gogh',
hand, to enable artists to do things that cannot Though foreigners are sometimes very consisting exclusively of paintings and drawings
be easily (or at all) realized in the 'normal' impressed by the governmental care for art, the from Russian museums, can be seen in the
institutions, and on the other hand to break situation is considered less favourably by Dutch Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo when it
through the confines of the isolationist artists themselves, and in my view they are re-opens in the spring. q
institutions and to present the public with art right. Serious objections can be raised against CAREL BLOTKAMP
44