Hanneke Sanou wonders if junior culture minister Halbe Zijstra knows his art from his elbow

Democracy at last. The public are going to tell junior minister Zijlstra what good art is by voting with their feet. So those exclusive little coteries of smirking art lovers don’t run off with all the subsidies.
Unless they cover every little art exhibition in the country and run in and out about a hundred times wearing a hundred different hats, those privileged bastards will bite the dust.
De Efteling on the other hand will become the pinnacle of Dutch art and culture. And the beach at Zandvoort. That’s part of our culture. Just look at those crowds. Subsidise Zandvoort, Zijlstra, it’s a postmodern Gesammtkunstwerk of mega proportions and a genuine example of Dutch taste.
Zijlstra is a populist. ‘Call that lump of fat art?’ he hears someone cry. ‘Pay to see a horse in formaldehyde, you must be joking,’ cries another. ‘Call that a painting, my little brother can do better,’ states a third.
Art that challenges needs time. Take Van Gogh. Yes, the one that museum is named after and which is raking in all that money now. That should cheer the minister up.
And you never know with these artists. Subsidise that group of young unknowns and you may be surprised in a year or two or twenty. If I were Zijlstra I would take another look at that turd in a box. There might be a message in it for him somewhere.