“What is missing in art” sounds from a megaphone. A couple of meters ahead, a man empties a bottle of milk in the Dommel River, next to the Van Abbemuseum. He walks up to the man with the megaphone and receives a piece of paper. The paper goes into the bottle, the bottle is closed and the next question already resounds over the water of the Dommel.

These are images of a performance by artist Erwin van Doorn, during the first part of The Gatherings for the Be[com]ing Dutch project, end of january 2007. Yesterday, over 9 months later, he showed them in ‘the space with the special chairs’ in the Van Abbemuseum to the participants of the Caucus.

In the next scene we see (the same) men filling buckets with sand and putting it onto a platform in the Dommel. De milk bottles, each filled with a paper, now disappear under the sand. The sun has set and the pile of sand and bottles keeps growing. Until five men walk up to the pile with a flag. De Dutch anthem sounds, played by an electric guitar, the way Jimi Hendrix played the American anthem during Woodstock in 1969. The flag is being planted into the pile, the anthem has ended and the five walk away.

In the next stage of the performance, the Dommel gets in charge. A new day has begun, the water has shrunk the pile of sand and bottles and it keeps getting smaller. Milk bottles are visible again and are taken by the current one by one. In their belly still the papers, with questions about art on it, from curators from all over the earth. The Dutch flag falls and goes down under water.

Back to Van Doorn’s presentation yesterday. “Wasting milk is what we do in Holland”, he says. “When there’s too much milk, it’s thrown away to keep the prices high. The same happens in the world of art.” With the island of sand and bottles, Erwin van Doorn refers to what according to him is the only true Dutch art; building on water. “Sometimes I dream about Holland being flushed by the water, that the dykes break and the land floods. When everything has washed away, the only thing that’s left is art.” In his performance, it’s the questions from the curators that remain and flow into the world.

The second part of his presentation, Van Doorn dedicates to hand out his Be[com]ing Dutch Dictionary Guide with city maps. On the maps he pointed out spots that he finds interesting. It’s not clear what exactly can be seen at the spots. It’s the task of the participant to go there and to write down his or her findings and experiences. “It’s a waste to stay in the museum all the time”, Van Doorn says. “Go into the city and search for confrontations. That way you will learn more about Holland than by staying here talking to one another.” At the end of the project, the findings will be collected, copied a thousand times and will be spread in Eindhoven.