BKR

From 1949 to 1987, the Netherlands implemented an innovative program called the Beeldende Kunstenaars Regeling (BKR), or the Visual Artists Scheme.

Designed as a hybrid of welfare and cultural policy, the BKR supported unemployed or underemployed artists by purchasing their works in exchange for a basic income, rather than providing conventional unemployment benefits.

Overnight many unemployed people became artists. They received financial support in exchange for producing artwork for the state. To get their dole they had to hand in an artwork once a month. Any piece of rubbish that was signed qualified as modern art. Marcel Duchamp is generally blamed for this in the Netherlands.

Over 200,000 artworks were collected by the Dutch government. They were drowning in art, so they came up with another scheme, the Public Art Leasing scheme.

Citizens and institutions could lease original art for nominal fees. It didn’t work because the art was considered as rubbish by the population. Because it was, literally.

In 1987 they finally wound up the scheme, after which the government quietly disposed of the 200,000 artworks; as in rubbish disposal.