[artinfo] The Dark Age Netherlands

[Bruce Sterling]

The Dutch government has disdainfully cast aside all the 
recommendations and is bulldozing ahead with its plans. The only 
possible conclusion that can be drawn is that they are intent on the 
wide-scale eradication of art and culture in the Netherlands. Halving 
the project subsidies - in an arts budget that was one of the lowest 
in Europe, even before the cutbacks - means that art in the 
Netherlands will cease to exist in its current form and diversity. 
After 600 years of growth and progress that started in the 
Renaissance, the Netherlands will once again find itself in a Dark 
Age.
http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2011/06/the-dark-age-netherlands