For years Jan Donia was permanent editor of the SKAR Newsreel. In this latest edition, the art lover looks back and looks ahead to the opportunities for SKAR. And of course he talks about the continuing importance of art.
For many artists, the studio is more important than their own home,' says Jan Donia, editor of the SKAR newsreel for many years. The studio is the artist's own small kingdom. Even artists with a small production often sit in the studio every day. That's how important the studio is to the artist'. Jan Donia, now 78, has written about Rotterdam artists since 1963. In that year he became an art critic for De Havenloods and since then he has visited countless studios. Soon he also wrote for national magazines and reviewed international exhibitions, for example those held in the illustrious Galerie 't Venster on the Oude Binnenweg. This is where international artists like Keith Haring later became famous and had their first exhibition in the Netherlands or even in Europe. Donia wrote a book about the gallery, Surrogaat. 15 years Galerie 't Venster, between Kiefer and Koons.
SKAR News
Donia was also at the beginning of the SKAR News: 'In 2005 I met Chris Bouma, the deceased director of SKAR, when he opened an exhibition of artists from the SKAR building on Hildegardisstraat. I had written pieces about those artists and was at that opening. It was there that the idea of a SKAR newsreel arose, at first modest with four pages and that slowly grew. I also brought in people from outside, for example to write columns.
Freedom
As editor of the SKAR newsreel, Donia had editorial freedom. And the SKAR newsreel was well read. Donia: "I noticed that when I came across artists from SKAR buildings who responded to the articles. There were also occasional reactions from the City Hall, especially when we were critical of the policy". Nowadays the ties with politics are positive and constructive. "And fortunately, SKAR used to be able to take over quite a few properties and we concluded a ten-year contract for part of the municipal buildings. That gives peace and that's what SKAR needs, simply because the tenants, the artists, need peace and quiet to be able to work".
The importance of art
"Of course the SKAR has a future," says Donia. Just because art has a future. Art will always be made and therefore there will always be a demand for workspaces, for studios. That demand can change in terms of content. Younger artists work with other media. There is still a lot of painting going on, but also media art and installations. Young people work more often in groups, in collectives. SKAR's task is to develop a new kind of offer for new groups of younger artists, in addition to the existing studio needs. How the work is created is up to the artist; only when a work leaves the studio can it be judged. It is the result that counts. Within the studio the artist is safe and is allowed to investigate and experiment. In the studio the artist is king.
