Global

In Europe, too, we encounter more and more far-right populists with a growing constituency. We are not even surprised anymore. The gains of the extreme right in Europe were not too bad. The Christian Democrats and Social Democrats lost ground, the Greens and Liberals gained ground, as did the Eurocentric parties.

What does all this mean for the arts? That remains to be seen.

But we're here to talk about art, so: what does all this mean for art? That remains to be seen. DutchCulture figures recently showed that Dutch cultural activities once again have a strong international presence: more than 15,000 Dutch cultural activities in 108 different countries in 2018. Germany and the United States are top destinations in this regard.

It seems that we are globalizing in the arts as well. That's great, because that way we can learn more about the world around us and the world can learn more about us. Globalization also means that political shifts in countries like the U.S. and Brazil have consequences for us, that we have to keep our eyes wide open worldwide. It means that statements made by Bolsonaro in Brazil about gays, women, criminalizing leftist thought and ideas from deforestation to condoning military juntas deserve as much attention as statements made by Baudet about working women, euthanasia and abortion. The world is increasingly a whole that -from our perspective- must go beyond Europe.

It means that statements made by Bolsonaro in Brazil about gays, women, criminalizing leftist thought and ideas from deforestation to condoning military juntas deserve as much attention as statements made by Baudet about working women, euthanasia and abortion.

One place where "the world" comes together peacefully, yet critically, is the biennial art biennial in Venice. Spread across parts of the city, a growing number of country pavilions display their state of the art: North Korea, Brazil, Germany, the United States, Israel, Ghana, Ivory Coast, etc.; you find the countries side by side and they visit each other's pavilions without passports in their pockets. More and more non-Western countries are participating, making the picture of international art more complete and less Eurocentric. Politics seems absent from Venice, but it does play a role.

The Brazilian pavilion showed the film Swingeurra by the duo Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca, a depiction of popular culture (the dance movement swingueria) which it combined with very pressing issues of gender fluidity and homosexuality (in 2018, more than 400 people from the LGBTQ+ community were murdered in Brazil). In Venice, art seems stronger than politics and art becomes politics and critique of current politics at the same time. Let's hope this stays that way and becomes commonplace worldwide. And let's hope that Bolsonaro and his entourage will be the creators of and the protagonists in the film Swingeurra leave alone.