De Zaak Nu
The Netherlands’ international cachet as one of the important hub of contemporary art is undisputed, yet all these spaces and their relevance are not sufficiently visible to the Dutch bodies of government. The government’s promise of austerity measures for the cultural sector is of unprecedented brutality and has sent waves of indignation and protest through all artistic fields, both nationally and internationally.
De Zaak Nu is a new syndicate for art presentation spaces and artist-run initiatives in the Netherlands. Its goal is to build a podium for this “independent” circuit of production and presentation of contemporary art, and to enter into a meaningful debate with local and national government agencies, as well as with corporations.
The name refers to De Zaak, the mother of all artist-run spaces in the Netherlands. De Zaak Nu asked us to make a clear reference to this first logo (designed by Jouke Kleerebezem), a simple rectangle with a diagonal, spelling out a Z:
The identity we developed for De Zaak Nu is characterized by bold gestures, simple shapes and strong colours. The colour system plays off of the official-looking”colours of road- and infrastructure signage, but the inversion of Jouke’s logo, with a thick (and mostly signal red) stroke is a clear “No” and sign of protest.
De Zaak Nu’s website functions as an aggregator of three different streams of news, “outreach, presentation and discourse”, as we called it, and provides an overview of its members, presenting the breadth of contemporary art presentation and production in the Netherlands.
(The website was programmed and implemented by Systemantics)
And here’s some post cards!
For De Zaak Nu, 2011.