2020
Poëzie ons beleid

Poëzie ons beleid

17.06–31.07.2020
00:00

Dear All,

We mean All who contribute presence, attention, creative energy, critique, and every small and large sum of currency for de Appel’s cultural offerings – we write you with great gratitude. You keep us focused and strong at all times. Recently, we have faced a perplexing predicament: a very positive assessment of our institution’s plans by the Raad voor Cultuur, which led to negative advice for crucial financial support via the National BIS subsidy. We reflect on the systemic causes of this contradiction, make plans with allies who work to transform the funding structures with resource-fulness, and we also take a pause to celebrate de Amsterdamse Kunstraad's positive assessment of our proposal to contribute towards a liveable city. We are thrilled to relay that de Appel was just advised 460 000 annually in support of our 2021-2024 programme. We are as grateful for this city support as we are to foundations and individual citizens, who recently brought us fortune through:

- Our successful crowdfunding campaign of 2019 to prepare the iconic Aula of Broedplaats Lely for a major commission by artist Patricia Kaersenhout.
- Our trophy for best Museum Night presentation of 2019 awarded by a group of 36 young Amsterdammers, who visited the different institutional locations.
- One of the top prizes for visionary social initiatives awarded thanks to a popular vote in the ING Prize ‘Help Nederland vooruit” – again our Education Programme led by David Smeulders excelled with Sound Gestures.

With these votes of confidence, we build a resilient economy. This involves working to strengthen the broader visual arts sector through organizations like MOKER and De Zaak Nu, which call for a more diverse cultural ecology and more positions in the basic infrastructure subsidy. Calls for a deeper understanding of the lasting systemic impact of colonial legacies point to the damage done by monopolies and all gross concentrations of wealth. These monocultures create echo chambers full of empty rhetoric, stifling the poetic plentitude of art. De Appel’s core mission remains: to make time and space for artists and allies to pose vital questions. All plural.

Hendrik Folkerts (once and always an Amsterdammer, now Dittmer Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago) notes: I have always believed in art institutions and organizations that function as a home for artists. This home could be a palace, a mansion, a condo, an apartment or a small studio—it really doesn’t matter as long as artists lead the way to ideas, forms, ways of togetherness, movements, words, which make us see the world anew. De Appel arts centre in Amsterdam is such a home.

Artist Patricia Kaersenhout writes the following: Last year I had the honor to host my solo exhibition Guess Who's coming to dinner too? in de Appel. Both the opening and the media attention were overwhelming, which is of course fantastic. But what was the greatest success of the whole project for me was the teamwork with de Appel. I have never worked with a group of people who have been so respectful, so loving with each other and with me as an artist. And as far as I am concerned, de Appel has passed with flying colors as the most inclusive, honest, vulnerable, non-hierarchical and open institution, where I imagined myself in a warm bath as an artist. Working with a team that does not think in problems but in solutions gives everything enormous added value.

We invest all we receive to make a true comfort zone where artists can make – and make public – their best work. Where all who make up our institution (from core team to project contributors and curatorial programme participants) can learn, in and with all the senses. Where the broader public can find shelter, relax, reflect, feel and dream. This is not a luxury. It is basic. As Audre Lorde insisted: It must be within our poetry and dreams that we begin to formulate the shape of a future that has not yet been. We persist. We plan. And we ask:

How shall we move policy towards poetry?

With love and respect,
Monika Szewczyk, on behalf of the Team of de Appel

De Appel is a charity: the organisation has been designated as an Institution for General Benefit (Algemeen Nut Beogende Instelling - ANBI) and is therefore exempt from inheritance- and gift tax. Support for de Appel can therefore be fiscally beneficial, both for individuals and companies. Private individuals may deduct 1.25 times the amount of the gift in their income tax return and companies subject to corporate income tax may deduct 1.5 times the amount of the gift in the corporate income tax return (in the Netherlands). Please see the website of the tax authorities here.


Bank: ABN AMRO BANK NV
Account name: Stichting De Appel, Amsterdam
IBAN number: NL58ABNA0466401027
BIC: ABNANL2A
Kamer van Koophandel nummer: NL41197650
BTW nummer: NL003339567B01