Page 25 - Studio Internatinal - October 1974

photography and art information is carried on how sophisticated the system of changing the
with teachers whose knowledge is not confined selection committee. And while the national
to only one medium. Boon's educational government does nothing in the way of
criteria are that a student should evolve a working financial subsidy to the building of new
rhythm with teachers, aiming for a discipline of museums or the refurbishing of old ones
working habits rather than a quantity of work currently under the responsibility and ownership
in the three year course. And he puts points of of provinces and towns, there seems little
animation into the school's rhythm by reason to wish for more contemporary and
periodically turning the (main) 'machine space' international art to be in those museums which
of the school into an arena for events like were the most badly-lit, ill-tended, crowded
a televised competition of the 'League for the installations of art I have ever seen. Under these
Future of Gooseboard Game play in G'. Not conditions it is unlikely that collectors and
surprisingly, the first such event occurred at artists would be tempted to donate work, and
the official opening of the school when the it is also very likely that the numerous works
black plastic covering the building's facade did from the past 700 years, about which cultural
not open when the Minister for Netherlandish civil servants seem so concerned, will have a
Culture pulled the string, but only after a gun rapidly decreasing life-span in today's air-polluted
went off and mediaeval-costumed musicians conditions. And until the Belgians lose some of
emerged from the door to serenade the crowd. their smug sensitivity about being divided — by
RHOK is obviously a school with more of a language-cultures, levels of government
future than a past, and I think that Boon is wise administration, age, and geography — and learn
to allow its structure to grow slowly with to co-operate amongst themselves by honestly
built-in assurances of flexibility like having all sharing costs, ideas, and sheer hard work, it is
staff on a part-time (night-school administrative unlikely that any of these problems will be
(Top four pictures) The opening of RHOK Brussel on
budget) basis so that no dead-wood achieves a righted. And they must put more money into Saturday 20 October 1973. The top right photograph
life-time position there. That a school with such their 'culture' if they expect it to survive: the shows the then minister for Netherlandish Culture,
a creative spirit could be established within any combined exhibitions budgets of Antwerp's Mr Jos Chabert and the school's director Marcel Boon
governmental system is wonderful, but within Museum of Fine Art and ICC (the main just after the minister's first unsuccessful attempt to
unveil the school. (Photos courtesy Open deur.)
the complexities of Belgian government it is a nationally subsidized Netherlandish institutions)
downright marvel. But then Boon is rather are much less than that of the Tate, and the (Bottom) Two first-year industrial design students
present their joint kinetic and light-changing work
extraordinary himself. He is also director of one direct-purchasing budget of the Ministry of
from the project 'form and colour' to the annual jury
of the few state art-schools (in Koekelberg) for Netherlandish Culture is less than what the UK
at La Cambre, Brussels, July 1974.
the under-eightedns who can follow its courses Arts Council puts out for purchase-exhibitions
outside their school or working hours — a school and grants to artists (about £45,000 yearly).
which he runs on similar principles with some It is not just a problem of the quantity of
of the same teachers. And a year ago he began money spent, but also how it is spent. It is
the Belgian CJP('Cultureel Jongeren Passport' simply absurd to pay the salaries of personnel to be only those ministries whose influence (and
or 'Carte J Passport des jeunes') — that Dutch direct programmes without assuring that control) can make such changes. I plead for
originated system of teenage clubs for consuming continuing funds specifically for those these changes from several bases. One is the
cultural events — which already has over programmes will be available: otherwise the sheer economic efficiency of the system:
20,000 members in Belgium. Boon is an example socialistic job-support encourages only laziness presently it seems wasteful, requiring more
of the type of strategist who can achieve something and/or frustration. It is absurd to pay for money spent in a different way to achieve a
within a Belgian socio-political structure. expert museum personnel without allowing useful cultural value. Another basis is from a
Which takes us back to the problems facing them to make acquisitions independent of vision of national pride: it is not sufficient to
people involved with public access to modern political permission from either local be proud of an artistic past without caring for
or contemporary art. For I think that these are committees or the ministries of culture: the present culture because that present culture
political problems which go beyond the small museum acquisition-budgets should be either also has a future. But finally I base my pleas on
group who are involved in (and structured by) free of outside control or else the advisory the need of ordinary people to have access (at
art-education — and without more varied committees should have demonstrated home) to international contemporary culture.
contemporary art being visible in the museums, knowledgeable interest in the visual arts (as at For as things stand now, the lack of dialogue
the real character of art education for everyone, Brussels' Palais de Beaux-Arts and London's with international contemporary culture from
is unlikely to change. While the purchasing Tate Gallery) and the national subsidy of within Belgium has driven into ex-patriatism,
decisions for the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in purchases should be governed by over-all some of the most extraordinarily creative
Antwerp remain in the hands of its council — figures rather than individual choices. And it is Belgians: the poet Hugo Claus lives in Holland,
filled with representatives of the province, absurd to undersubsidize and not utilize the the novelist Marguerite Yourcenar lives in
city, local academy, and headed by the city's imaginative professional energy of the exhibitions America, the artist Marcel Broodthaers lives in
mayor — it really doesn't matter if the chief (or at the ICC and Palais de Beaux-Arts for the Britain, the critic Michel Seuphor lives in France.
any other) curator has studied the twentieth rest of Belgium: why not establish additional Obviously the good life in Belgium has not been
century as part of his art-historical professional national budgets to subsidize some of their sufficient to retain its generators of a more
training, nor does it matter if the budget for exhibitions to be specifically designed for spiritual culture. And here is the ultimate
acquisitions is trebled. And while a large part of (further subsidized) travelling to other smaller danger: that the people in Belgium cannot
the nation's art acquisitions is done by the two provincial and city institutes and museums? directly participate with the experience of their
Ministries of Culture for gifts to museums and To do this requires some drastic changes in own cultural creators who demand something
libraries and embassies, it is politically the style and mentality of the national larger than what they find within the country.
unreasonable to expect such money to be administration of funds, personnel and taste. More access to more lively and international
spent on non-Belgian artists or work of an Since most problems seem to end in a discussion contemporary visual-arts could turn part of that
immediately controversial nature — no matter of the policy of the ministries of culture, it may potentially disastrous tide.q
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