The biennial Vincent Award for European contemporary art will be hosted by the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague. The winner of the 2014 edition will be announced at the Museum on Friday 21 November 2014, and will receive a prize of 50,000 Euros. The prize has a political dimension, as its explicit goal is to further understanding and integration in Europe.
The shortlisted artists for 2014, selected by a Jury chaired by the Gemeentemuseum Director, Benno Tempel, are: Gillian Wearing (UK), Pierre Huyghe (France), Manfred Pernice (Germany), Willem de Rooij (Netherlands), Anri Sala (Albania/France).
An exhibition of the work of the shortlisted artists will go on show at the Gemeentemuseum from 6 September 2014 – 1 February 2015, acting as an international focus for debate and discussion about contemporary art in a European context.
The Vincent Van Gogh Biennial Award, known popularly as The Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht and then at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. The new partnership with the Gemeentemuseum will run from 2014-2020. The Jury for the 2014 edition is: Benno Tempel, Director of the Gemeentemuseum (Chair); Stephan Berg, Director Kunstmuseum Bonn; Anda Rottenberg, independent art critic and curator; Anita Zabludowicz, Director, Zabludowicz Collection, London, New York, Savisalo; Isabel Carlos, Director, Centro del Art Moderna, Lisbon.
The Gemeentemuseum, built in the 1930s, is renowned as an Art Deco masterpiece of the celebrated Dutch architect H P Berlage. Its vast collections include the largest collection of works by Piet Mondrian in the world, a rich collection of 20th century art, with masterpieces by Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky, Francis Bacon, Louise Bourgeois and Sol Lewitt, amongst others; works from De Stijl movement and minimalist art, and noted collections of 20th century fashion and design, including art nouveau and art deco.
As part of the new Vincent Award partnership, the Museum has also received a long-term loan of the Monique Zajfen Collection, one of the most important private collections of contemporary art in the Netherlands, which includes work by three earlier recipients of the Vincent Award, Pawel Althamer, Neo Rauch and Wilhelm Sasnal. The collection also includes works by amongst others, Marlene Dumas, Luc Tuymans, Thomas Schütte and Stephan Balkenhol, which will be shown alongside the Vincent Award exhibition.
Benno Tempel, Director of the Gemeentsmuseum, said: “We are delighted to have forged this new partnership to hold the Vincent Award in The Hague from 2014 onwards. In an increasingly globalised world, I believe the selection of artists for 2014 amply demonstrates the continuing power and significance of artists working in Europe today. We hope that The Hague’s natural role as a centre of debate in a democratic Europe, will contribute a new energy to the debate around European contemporary art.”