How do their schemes compare with local and regional schemes? To what extent can the funds respond to specific regional circumstances? What do the state cultural funds have to offer the region?
The publication examines the role that the national cultural funds, including the Mondrian Fund, have for a significant proportion of artists and cultural institutions and how they fulfill that role. The funds have a keen eye for new developments and at the same time move with the political and social situation. There is a tension between the need among creators for customization and the obligation for funds to design transparent, generic subsidy schemes.
There is a tension between need among creators and obligation for funds
The funds consider it important, for the vitality of the cultural sector, that the system be open enough to provide space for new creators from all geographical areas of the Kingdom. The spread of institutions across the country is also aspired to, but sharp choices must also be made in the allocation of subsidies. In a city where multiple cultural institutions coexist, more pronounced artistic choices can be made.
The maker climate in large cities, associated with the multitude of venues and institutions and the corresponding audiences, is difficult to reproduce outside an urban context.
Fine Art
The Mondriaan Fund facilitates plans, projects and programs by artists, exhibition makers and critics, museums and other art and heritage institutions, publishers and patrons. The fund serves artists and curators throughout the Netherlands and supports visual art and heritage. Among creators, there is a strong concentration in the Randstad, but their work ends up all over the Netherlands. When assessing artistic quality, consideration is given to how it relates to the context in which the work is made. The place where the work is presented is also relevant. The Mondriaan Fund safeguards this weighting by using advisors with a broad perspective, in which the fund applies a quota: one-third of the advisors come from, are based or work in one of the parts of the country outside the Randstad. Since 2017, the fund has worked with four regional brokers who are potentialële applicants about the opportunities at the fund. They also identify developments in their part of the country. This has led to more applications and more advisors coming from the region.
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