Amsterdam, 2 August 2024

Dear Laurien Saraber,

After the summer, we will take the professional lobbying path through our interest groups Moker and De Zaak Nu, but I feel compelled to send you this personal cri de coeur now. This is not to appeal to you as an individual, but to address you as a representative of the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts (AFK). In that capacity, you are responsible for all the arts, including the visual arts. 

We have seen for years that the visual arts discipline is doing very poorly: both the total budget and the individual subsidy amounts lag far behind the other disciplines. This is unfair. This must change. This is a task for the AFK. It will be very difficult, and I certainly don’t want to undermine our colleagues (as a performance institution we are also passionate visitors of theater, music, and dance), but it has to be done.

I am very happy for the visual arts institutions that have received a positive evaluation and subsidy award, but apart from our own disappointment, it is difficult for me to see that fellow institutions with an important history and strong program, such as AGA Lab, de Appel, Kunstverein, and Pa/////kt, (just like us) might not survive.

I am not going to write subsidy application language like ‘the importance of the chain’ etc.; you all know those arguments. But the fact is that with this result, many visual artists and Amsterdam residents will miss important platforms and production houses.

I was happy to read in Het Parool that you indeed recognize that these institutions are “essential for the wealth and development of the sector.” My message is super simple and yet no less painful: there is an unfair distribution of the budget. Do something about it. 

Wish you a lovely summer,

Frédérique Bergholtz, on behalf of the team Marcel van den Berg, Anik Fournier, Sara Giannini, and Hans Schamlé