Van Arcadië naar Nieuw Babylon

Het Limburgse kunstdebat in de jaren zestig

Samenvatting

The American historian James Kennedy (1963) argued in 1995 in New Babylon in opbouw. Nederland in de jaren zestig that it was not the protest generation that forced the changes that caused the Netherlands to develop during this period from a relatively traditional to a relatively progressive society, but the pre-war cultural elites that allowed these changes. Also, in Limburg and other peripheral regions such as Groningen and Friesland, the changes in the 1960s unmistakably penetrated. The figures of the declining support for the KVP (Catholic People’s Party) prove that the Limburger became less law-abiding and more independent of the diocese of Roermond and its clerics.

The belief that art and culture contribute to the well-being of the entire population and the resulting democratization of art and culture was widely supported and had a major impact on all actors in the Limburg art world, from artists and art institutions such as the Jan van Eyck Academy to governments and organizations such as the Culturele Raad Limburg (Limburg Cultural Council). The dissatisfaction about the status quo that led to artists’ uprisings, initiated by the Beroepsvereniging Beeldend Kunstenaars (Professional Association of Visual Artists) not only in Amsterdam but also far beyond, was also felt in Limburg and manifested itself in protest actions, such as around the exhibition ‘Art in Limburg ’71’. Limburg, too, became a relatively progressive region in the late 1960s, in which the cultural authorities bent along and agreed to the inevitable changes, at the end even in the very conservative city of Maastricht.