The prospect of having performance artists dressed up like Disney’s Snow White parading with toy guns in the city hall caused quite a stir in The Hague over the last weeks. It is not that the Dutch are easily scandalized – they are rather hardened in matters of artistic provocation – but the consistency in the branding of a city such as the The Hague is becoming a more important principle than artistic freedom. The Hague likes to present itself as the international capital of peace and justice, and to start with, the officials in charge of city marketing didn’t like the theme chosen by Todaysart festival 2009, “The Hague City of Conflict”. Continue reading →