NETHERLANDS
Area: 41 864 km² - Population: 16.4 million - Capital: Amsterdam – Seat of government: The Hague
Official Language: Dutch - Date of joining the EU: founding member in 1957
A FEW INDICATIONS
The Netherlands have been a nursery for great painters, starting with Hieronymus Bosch, in 15th century, whose works with their strange symbolism are populated by creatures that are the prey of fear and suffering. Rembrandt, the master of chiaroscuro, endowed his religious scenes and his portraits with an extraordinary expressive force, and was the leader of the artists of the Dutch Golden Age. Frans Hals and Johannes Vermeer, his contemporaries, made reputations as masters of portraits and scenes of daily life, two new themes at the time.
Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) was born in Groot-Zundert, but spent a large part of his life in Belgium and in France. He did his first paintings in the Netherlands, such as the austere P
otato Eaters. A little later, Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) founded the Modernist movement De Stijl (Style) while the complex works created by Maurits Escher (1902-1972) defied the laws of Euclidian geometry. Among contemporary painters, Marlene Dumas is considered the greatest. But in the other contemporary artistic disciplines as well, the Dutch are tops internationally, such as the authors Hella Haasse and Cees Nooteboom, the musicians Ton Koopman and Frans Brüggen, the designers Hella Jongerius and Joep van Lieshout, the photographers Rineke Dijkstra and Desiree Dolron, and the architectes Winnie Maas and Rem Koolhaas. Architect Rem Koolhaas, whose project for reconstruction of Les Halles in Paris recently gave rise to strong interest, bears witness to this opening and to this sense of innovation and of Dutch creation.
ORGANIZATION OF CULTURAL POLICIES
The Netherlands’ cultural infrastructure is a rather original one: in 2008, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sciences (OCW) managed 244.5 million euros a year, including 136.7 million handled by thirteen Cultural Foundations (presided over by experts), such as the Mondrian Foundation and the Foundation for translation of Dutch literature, which make grants to artists and arrange cultural events abroad, and including 27.2 million managed by sectorial institutes, such as the Premsela Foundation for Design, or the Dutch Institute of Architecture (NAi).
All of these foundations and institutes receive a budget for a period of four years. The new budgetary breakdown will apply to the 2009-2012 period. The Ministry of Culture, Dr. Ronald Plasterk, is advised by the most important cultural organ in the Netherlands: the Council on Culture (President: Mrs. Els Swaab). Thus, the Council has just put a proposal to the minister to increase the cultural budget by 26.6 million euros, so as to guarantee cultural diversity, to promote culture abroad, and to balance the funding of the various Dutch regions, in an opinion containing some 668 pages, entitled Base Infrastructure 1.0.
Events connected with the country
Franco-Dutch Tandem
19 July-9 August in Rotterdam, Rotterdam Centraal
25 August-15 October at Paris-Gare du Nord
Vernissage of the exhibition: Paris Gare du Nord-Train Thalys on 13 October
Photography
United in diversity: European attitudes
Spotlight on European identity by way of a photographic exhibition and an architectural gesture.
www.pi-art.fr
www.exactitudes.com
www.exyzt.org
And also...
July-October at the Festival of Marseille, Avignon Festival and at the Maison des arts in Créteil
Dutch Dance/Choreographers
Hell
Choreographer: Emio Greco and Pieter Scholten
Festival of Marseille (2, 3 July)
[Purgatorio] Popopera
Choreography: Emio Greco and Pieter Scholten
Avignon Festival (from 17 to 20 July)
Hell (2006) and Popopera (creation in the spring of 2008) are the first 2 parts of trilogy inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy.
íSA (Memories imprisoned in ice)
Choreography: Kristel van Issum
T.R.A.S.H Inc.
Maison des arts in Créteil (17, 18 October)
A young Dutch company whose work could be recently discovered in France (To File for chapter 11).
12-14 July at the Avignon Festival
Theatre
Roman Tragedies: Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, Anhony and Cleopatra, by William Shakespeare.
Staging: Ivo van Hove
By the Dutch company Toneelgroep Amsterdam
ThreeShakespeare tragedies presented during a 6-hour marathon by a few of the best Dutch actors.
18-28 September in Paris, Parc de la Villette and Festival Les Pop’s
Theatre
Young Dutch directors
Dries Verhoeven (In the middle of the ford), Jetse Batelaan (The Escorts), Lotte van den Berg (Rumor).
2 October-30 November in Paris, Dutch Institute
Exhibition
Bruegel, Rubens and their contemporaries.
An exhibition of Nordic drawings at the Uffizi Museum in Florence (Gabinetto disegni e stampe delgli Uffizi di Firenze), in parallel to an exhibition on Dutch contemporary drawing (2 October-9 November).
14-15 November in Paris, Opéra Bastille (Amphithéâtre)
Concert
Asko Ensemble
Directed by: Peter Eötvös
Program: Karlheinz Stockhausen. Within the framework of the Autumn Festival and of the European Cultural Season organized by the Land of North Rhine-Westphalia.
For more information :
Dutch Institute in Paris
Cultural Center of the Netherlands
121 rue de Lille - 75007 Paris
Tel.: 01 53 59 12 40
Fax: 01 45 56 00 77
http://www.institutneerlandais.com/
info@institutneerlandais.com
- Updated: 17.07.2008
