De Telegraaf — Change the n to a k?

Column by Rob Hoogland.

Well, well, a baseline measurement this time. One moment, I need to give myself a stern talking-to: ‘Behave yourself, Goof! Don’t change the n to an l to suggest that our fellow citizens of colour will automatically be given priority. Jörgen Raymann is allowed to make those kinds of jokes, as Auntie Es. You aren’t. As a white man, your place is at the back of the bus.’

Why do I make things so difficult for myself sometimes? To be clear, I’m talking about the baseline measurement — nulmeting in Dutch — that the Amsterdam Arts Council is suddenly demanding from grant applicants. You do know what a baseline measurement is, don’t you? ‘An inventory of the current situation, with the results used as a starting point for further research,’ says ensi.nl.

Make no mistake, the city executive has authorised Felix Rottenberg and his cronies to distribute a good 111 million in grants for the period from 2021 to 2024. They were in the news recently, too. That was when they declared freedom of expression in Amsterdam’s art world — precisely the place where free expression ought to be practically rule number one — subordinate to inclusion and diversity.

The council was met with derision. The term Entartete Kunst was invoked; Stalin and his compulsory socialist realism were wheeled out too. And yet, at the insistence of the executive of Pyongyang on the Amstel, the arts and culture funder is now going one better with this baseline measurement.

‘Has your organisation formulated concrete objectives in the field of diversity and inclusion?’ Questions of that sort — no fewer than fifteen — have to be answered. And if the answers aren’t to their liking, even the most brilliant white male painter, sculptor, musician, singer or actor in such an organisation can go and stack shelves at Albert Heijn, because preference goes to a type of whom artist Kate Sinha provided a striking example almost two years ago in a TPO piece about the Stedelijk’s ‘left-wing engaged indifference’: ‘The absolute pinnacle was the Zanele Muholi exhibition, where the visitor was expected to take an interest in the idle fancies of a spoilt slut simply because she comes from South Africa and is a black lesbian.’

Something tells me Kate won’t qualify for financial support from Amsterdam any time soon.

Oh yes, there’s that too: cultural appropriation

And what has the Stedelijk itself now committed to paper in proper social-justice-warrior fashion? This, for instance: ‘Matisse and Picasso were the first modernists to be influenced by African art. They saw vitality and intensity in its sculptures and masks. Beyond this appropriation for their own art, these modernists had no interest in the meaning and function of these African sculptures.’

Oh yes, there’s that these days too: cultural appropriation. You think Picasso was the greatest ever? Oh no, a thief and a racist!

Fervently hoping that the Stedelijk has finally licked Felix Rottenberg’s heels enough, I address myself once more: ‘You know what, Goof? Go ahead and change that n to a k.’