Concise.pdf - Brugge Plus

In this part of the final report, we shall examine in greater detail the results of BRUGGE 2002,
Cultural Capital of Europe. The programme will be dissected, we shall go over communication
and dwell on the budgetary aspect of the project. We shall end this book with the results
of the impact study carried out by the research bureau WES for the City of Bruges, Toerisme
Vlaanderen and BRUGGE 2002.
The legitimisation of culture
It may well no longer come as any surprise, but BRUGGE 2002 is able to produce good
figures.
Not that there are no comments to be made, on the contrary. Through the texts you
will notice that we dare to be critical of ourselves, but also of our partners.
However, the essence, namely the force of the cultural year as a whole, is felt by most
observers to have been a success. Obviously we are happy with this assessment.
We are also satisfied with how the project was translated into hard, substantiated figures.
On the following pages you will learn all about it. We shall examine the figures
in some detail. The impact study does the same. Remarkable figures, all the same!
The impact of a cultural event suddenly becomes tangible. Figures prove all too often
to be “evidence” of something that you felt and actually already knew. They suddenly
express what you instinctively perceive in concrete terms.
This does not prevent us from still being surprised at how keen people are to examine
literal figures.
Clearly a project that has gone well, particularly in terms of its quality, needs to be
evaluated by reporting a series of figures. And the figures must justify this! However,
the question remains if culture should have to legitimise itself repeatedly
For us it is about more than figures, or rather about what the figures represent.
The preparatory report by Bart Caron stated that only after gaining a “deeper” insight
should we look for the image of Bruges as a city of art, which is still the prevailing
image.
Naturally it is more difficult to grasp what this deeper insight is, where quality work
was produced and still has to be produced in the city of art, resulting in a more indepth
perception. This conclusion requires a different method of analysis from simply
putting figures alongside or above and below each other.
7
CONCISE
Let’s try it for 2002
Obviously we already knew, certainly since “Hans Memling, 5 eeuwen werkelijkheid
en fictie” (1994) and “Brugge en de Renaissance: van Memling tot Pourbus” (1998),
that Bruges could organise major exhibitions.
But organising three such whoppers in a period
of not quite nine months was something
that had not been done before. And there was a
new public for it. The pillars “Jan van Eyck,
Early Netherlandish Painting and Southern
Europe”, “HANZE@M4DICI” and “Cloistered
World, Open Books” supported the cultural
year on different levels. Certainly in terms of
visitor numbers, but they were also the cultural
foundations of the programme. Cultural-historical,
from Bruges and European!
They demonstrated how strong Bruges can be
in art-history research – a quality which
demands greater attention and an area of application
over the coming years.
And finally they show that other presentations
than the classic museological are possible. And
Jonge Snaken (Young Fellas Festival)
© JAN VERNIEUWE