Instrumental

Few policymakers write in their papers that art in itself represents a value that needs no further substantiation. In the quest for more visitors, residents, tourists, businesses, young people, the elderly, and so on, art is often about making a village, city, region or the entire country more attractive. And then the raison d'être of art is quickly found in economic interests. Art as a driver of the economy, art that is good for the wallet (except for that of the artist) - members of the Royal Family must have thought the same about the wallet. National heritage? No, an instrument for making money.

The question arises as to what thinking in terms of utility does to the artistic appreciation of art in the longer term. Because it is thought from a utility point of view, it is quite conceivable that this intrinsic appreciation decreases. And then what? Apart from the hasty scaling up of cultural education -rightly so- in order to save what can be saved, the sale of art will fall, artists' incomes will continue to decline, fewer artists will be trained and fewer collectors will buy art, and so on. What will be left? The "right of Zijlstra" and art as an instrument. The snake bites itself in its tail.

It is time for a new vocabulary from the arts, a new vocabulary with which policy makers and administrators can feed and which first of all points out the importance of art in a world that constantly needs to be critically questioned. Because that is what artists can do, they can be an instrument to support the established order, but they can also question and criticize it with their art. And criticism of the established order is an essential element in a democracy! Artists therefore need to be given and granted space, without the art they produce having to be purely instrumental. Instrumental is allowed, but it would be very valuable if it did not become the most accepted value of art.