Vincent Biennial Contemporary Art in Europe Award Shortlist Announced

The shortlisted artists for 2016 The Vincent Award have been named as  Nairy Baghramian (b. Iran, lives and works in Berlin), Manon de Boer (b. Netherlands, lives and works in Brussels), João Maria Gusmão + Pedro Paiva (Portugal), Jutta Koether (Germany) and Slavs and Tatars (established in Eurasia in 2006, now based in Berlin). The news was announced today by the international jury. Benno Tempel, director of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag and chairman of the jury, says: “From Portugal to beyond the Balkans. The work of this amazing group of artists shows the breadth and richness of contemporary art in Europe today.” The artists’ entries will be presented from 24 September 2016 in an exhibition entitled The Vincent Award 2016; the winner will be announced on 17 November 2016. 

Jury chairman Benno Tempel speaks of an outstandingly strong and imaginative shortlist, reflecting the aims of The Vincent Award. “These artists come from all over Europe and are based in a number of different countries. Their work addresses the past, present and future of the continent.” The five artists employ a vast range of media and their works are both poetic and concerned with form. Moreover, the shortlist includes four women. As Tempel points out, “This is unusual, because women still find it more difficult to enter the artistic canon and their work attracts less interest in the art market than that of their male counterparts. Their presence shows the special value of this prize. The Vincent Award judges on the basis of merit and the influence of European artists on contemporary art elsewhere in the world.” 

The Vincent Van Gogh Biennial Award for Contemporary Art in Europe – known for short as ‘the Vincent Award’ – is one of the world’s leading contemporary art prizes. It is awarded to a mid-career artist who lives and/or works in Europe and whose work is regarded as influential on international developments in contemporary art. The purpose of the Vincent Award is both to encourage artistic talent and to promote communication in a free, united and peaceful Europe. The previous winners of the €50,000 prize are Eija-Liisa Ahtila (2000), Neo Rauch (2002), Pawel Althamer (2004), Wilhelm Sasnal (2006), Deimantas Narkevičius (2008) and Anri Sala (2014). The Vincent Award was launched by the Broere Foundation in 2000. It was established in memory of Monique Zajfen, a beloved friend of the Broere family and former holder of Galerie 121 in Antwerp. It was her commitment to and passion for contemporary art that inspired the Broere Foundation to institute the award and to seek to encourage artistic talent in Europe. Since 2014, the organization of the prize has been in the hands of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag.  

The jury will announce the name of the winner of The Vincent Award 2016 at an award show to be held at the Gemeentemuseum on 17 November 2016. The members of this year’s international jury are Benno Tempel (chairman, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag), Sabine Folie (art historian and curator), Hubertus Gaßner (Hamburger Kunsthalle), Julia Peyton-Jones (Serpentine Galleries) and Jaroslaw Suchan (Muzeum Sztuki). They have selected the five nominees from a longlist put together by ten correspondents from all over Europe. The correspondents were Devrim Bayar (Belgium), Daria de Beauvais (France), Barnabás Bencsik (Hungary), Elena Filipovic (Switzerland), Roos Gortzak (The Netherlands), Marko Jenko (Slovenia), Heinz-Norbert Jocks (Germany), Jenni Lomax (Great Britain), Teresa Velázquez Cortés (Spain) and Janka Vukmir (Croatia). The procedure safeguards the Europe-wide nature of the prize.

Photo: courtesy of Gemeentemuseum all rights reserved

 

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