—Mission
The system looked away. We keep the record.
The median Dutch visual artist earns €16,000 a year — the lowest of any creative category, and below the social minimum of €18,800. More than one in four artists lives structurally below subsistence level. (CBS Monitor Kunstenaars, 2025)
The overlooked maker
The system did not overlook these makers because their work falls short. It overlooked them because it is too narrow to contain them. Four patterns come up again and again.
—Four patterns
How we select
Selection tests three things, and all three have to hold. First the curatorial framework, The Dimensions: four conditions, each one necessary. A maker who meets three of the four is not curated.
Then two conditions that come from the mission rather than from the work. An independent market position: the maker is not tied to an exclusive representation or commission agreement that would limit taking part, or limit selling directly to the public. This tests where a maker stands in the market, not the quality of the work.
And a route of its own. What we test is not the absence of a diploma but the absence of a straight line: a path that did not run through the usual gates, or that ran through them and arrived somewhere the training did not intend. A career switch, a self-taught practice, no art school — or a formal education followed by years of work the institution never came back for. Training is not a disqualification; an uninterrupted institutional route is what we do not go looking for. The four patterns above are what this looks like in practice. They are recognition points for scouting, not a checklist for admission.
—The four conditions
MADART Foundation finances the maker's exhibition: production, presentation, fee. 100% of the sale proceeds go to the maker. No exclusive contract. No fee to take part.
—What MADART is not
Not an event agency
An event agency delivers logistics. We deliver context — a room that has meant something for three months before anyone walks in.
Not a gallery
No exclusive contracts and no commission inside our programme. Art here is an instrument for connection, not a revenue stream.
Not an agency
An agency adapts to the brief. We set the curatorial line and invite the partner to the table.
Not built on subsidy alone
The ecosystem is designed so that the commercial arm structurally finances the Foundation. That structure is being put in place; until it carries the programme, subsidies and gifts do.
Not activism
We take no political or religious position. Selection is made on artistic and cultural grounds. Critical is welcome. Cynical is not.
Not a development track
We do not train makers and we do not hold on to them. There is no age limit, no emerging bracket, no cohort and no graduation. Where our statutes speak of support and guidance, that support is the exhibition itself — production, presentation, a fee and an audience. It is given once, in full, and it ends when the season ends. There is work that counts, and a room to show it in.
How selection is recorded
We approach makers ourselves, through our own research and through the network. There is no open call at the moment. Every assessment is written down all the same: how we came across the maker, how the work tests against the four conditions, the outcome, and — where we decline — a short reason. A maker who is declined receives that reason.
The full policy, including how we handle conflicts of interest, is published on our governance page.