Toespraak minister Van Engelshoven bij opening eindexamententoonstelling KABK

Toespraak | 06-07-2018

“But on the road that I’m on I must continue; if I do nothing, if I don’t study, if I don’t keep on trying, then I am lost...”

Vincent van Gogh wrote these words in June 1880 in a letter to his brother Theo, a successful art dealer.

At the time Van Gogh was living and working in the Borinage, an industrial region of Belgium, where he mainly painted scenes from the lives of local labourers.

Dark and sombre works depicting hard-working men and women. He barely sold a painting.

Writing to his brother he tried to explain that while the choices he made might not always be sensible, he could not do otherwise.

To him, the life of the artist was a calling.

Dear graduates,

Your student days are over.

Over the past few years you have learned, and you have experimented.

You have searched and you have found.

You have taken paths that sometimes seemed like dead ends, but that always led to new crossroads.

It all happened here, in the safe environment of this academy.

Where you were always able seek advice from your teachers.

And consult your fellow students.

Where failures were never final but a step on the way to achieving your goals.

Some of you had a student travel card in your pocket. And the right to student finance, in one form or another.

Now all that is over. Your student status is a thing of the past.

For many of your peers this moment represents an abrupt break with the past: straight out of the classroom and onto the job market.

This may well apply to some of you too. No doubt a few of you already have a contract in your pocket or started your own business.

That’s great news, of course.

But it will not be true of most of you.

Your student days are over, yet for creatives like you the years of learning and experimenting are only just beginning.

You will keep on searching and finding,

and taking roads that sometimes appear to go nowhere, yet always lead to new crossroads.

And as you reap the rewards of your search, you express your deepest thoughts and innermost feelings.

You bring beauty to the world around you,

hold up a mirror to society,

shake things up.

Whether – like Fine Arts graduate Sam Andrea – you explore profoundly personal urges and emotions.

Or whether you focus on explosive social issues, the way graphic designers André Evers and Niels van der Donk do. André explores war traumas and Niels dissects fake news.

Art creates movement.

It sends ripples racing across the water.

Whatever the approach, it always makes an impact.

On the man or woman who is moved by it.

Or on the society it sets in motion.

Art always has social significance – even if as an artist you are not always aware of it. Whether it is something you relish or would rather reject...

I believe that such achievements deserve to be rewarded.

First and foremost by recognizing their social significance.

Recognizing that art is vital to a healthy society.

Not simply frills and frippery, as some criticasters would have us believe.

I also believe that there should be a material aspect to such recognition.

A just reward for honest work.

Dear graduates,

Diversity among artists and designers is as vast as the number of artists and designers themselves.

And yet there is one characteristic that you all have in common, and that is your drive.

Without that drive, that passion, you would have abandoned this journey long ago.

You would not have been here today.

That same drive will take you far.

But it can also muddy the waters...

When it comes to negotiating a fee, for example.

A fee for an assignment you would love to carry out.

In those circumstances, it can be very tempting to give away your talents for next to nothing.

For the chance to build a portfolio,

or in the hope that this might be the springboard to another assignment,

or for the sheer joy of working on a hugely enjoyable project.

All very understandable reasons, and certainly at the beginning of your career, you cannot always stick to your guns.

And yet.

As you move towards a professional career, you will also help determine the nature of the profession itself.

If you then consider working for less than the going rate, remember that you are selling yourself short. And selling your fellow artists short, too.

When weighing up the pros and cons, you also have your responsibility to consider.

I try to fulfil my own responsibility as best I can, for example by giving the Mondriaan Fund the financial resources to pay artists a decent rate.

I am also examining ways to oblige institutions that receive state subsidy to pay a fair fee. And I am calling on municipal and provincial authorities to do the same.

Vincent van Gogh had no choice when, in June 1880, he wrote that letter to his brother Theo, the letter I quoted at the beginning of my speech.

His “financial affairs were in a sorry state”. Sometimes he “earned his crust of bread,” and sometimes it was given to him by a friend “as a favour”.

And yet he wrote to his brother Theo that “on the road that I’m on I must continue; if I do nothing, if I don’t study, if I don’t keep on trying, then I am lost...”

You share Van Gogh’s drive, his passion.

But times have changed.

It is now 2018.

You do have a choice.

My message to you is: choose wisely, choose well and in your own best interests!

 

Thank you for your kind attention.