16/12/2010
Dolf Henkes Award 2010
Tent, Rotterdam
Aji V.N., Lara Almarcegui, Otto Egberts, and Jasper Niens. The shortlisted artists present their work and represent a local artistic climate manifesting itself internationally more than ever: from drawing to installations and conceptual art.
The Rotterdam-based artists Aji V.N., Lara Almarcegui, Otto Egberts, and Jasper Niens have been
nominated for the Dolf Henkes Award 2010. The four nominees have been selected by an expert jury
led by Wim van Krimpen, former director of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. The shortlisted artists
will present their work in a show held in TENT from 17 December to 13 February. The Dolf Henkes
Award is one of the major Dutch awards for the visual arts. It has been awarded to leading Rotter-
dam artists biennially since 2004. The winner of the Dolf Henkes Award 2010 will be announced on
Thursday evening 10 February 2011.
The Dolf Henkes Foundation entered into a long-term collaboration with the Centrum Beeldende Kunst
Rotterdam. From now on, the two-yearly award ceremony will take place at TENT Rotterdam, pre-
ceded by an exhibition of the nominees' works. This collaboration underlines the growing prestige of
the Dolf Henkes Award. De prize of 20,000 euros for leading Rotterdam artists was established in 2004.
Previous winners are Jeroen Eisinga, Erik van Lieshout and Melvin Moti. With this collaboration, the
Dolf Henkes Foundation takes another step in supporting talented artists. The biennial award can be
considered a status report of art and leading artists in Rotterdam. The Dolf Henkes Award is awarded
to artists fitting the profile outlined by its namesake, Dolf Henkes: they are idiosyncratic and have a
special relationship with Rotterdam or the Netherlands Antilles. The Rotterdam artist Dolf Henkes
(1903-1989) left 5000 works, a large part of which is now owned by the Netherlands Institute for
Cultural Heritage (ICN). Henkes requested that part of his heritage be reserved for a prize for
Rotterdam artists. That makes the Dolf Henkes Award an artist's award for artists. It is the largest art
prize in Rotterdam. Other Rotterdam art awards are the Chabot Award and the Pendrecht Award.
The nominees for the Dolf Henkes Award 2010 notably bridge generations. They are of all ages,
laureate and international. Their artistic practices range from drawing to installations and conceptual
art. This makes the jury's choice a broad one, above all. Together, the nominees represent a local
artistic climate manifesting itself internationally more than ever. The nominees' exhibition, then, can
be seen as a celebration of the present quality of art in Rotterdam rather than a competition between
four artists. The jury for the Dolf Henkes Award 2010 consists of: Wim van Krimpen (chairman), Melvin
Moti (artist, winner of the Dolf Henkes Award 2008), Saskia van Kampen (curator of the City collection
at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen) and Arno van Roosmalen (director at Stroom Den Haag, Board
member at the Dolf Henkes Foundation).
About the nominees:
Aji V.N. (Kerala, India, 1968)
V.N.'s monumental drawings are full of atmosphere, soberly composed of soft colours. He develops his
handwriting in water colour and charcoal on coloured paper. His themes range from human figures to
woods, deserts, seas and air. Some drawings display a strong chiaroscuro, others focus on lines and
contours. Travelling between India and Rotterdam, V.N.'s drawings are bound to neither place nor
culture. www.ajivn.com
Lara Almarcegui (Zaragoza, Spain, 1972)
At the centre of Lara Almarcegui's work is her fascination with spaces that escape the design of
architects and urban planners, like wastelands, demolition areas and allotment gardens. She often
produces guides to the wasteland she wants to show, with texts and photographs telling the story of
the location. A collection of unplanned space across the globe has emerged that way, with guides and
slide shows of places like Sao Paulo, Dubai, Amsterdam and London. www.braakliggendterrein.nl
Otto Egberts (Vlaardingen, the Netherlands, 1949)
Otto Egbert's slightly surreal drawings, paintings and installations give shape to continuous and
progressive doubts about human existence. Over 25 years, a consistent body of work has emerged in
which the human condition and man's relationship with his surroundings take centre stage. To Egberts,
the meaning of space in a social as well as an existential sense is not only a personal, but a philo-
sophical question. www.ottoegberts.nl
Jasper Niens (Zwolle, the Netherlands, 1980)
Since his graduation from AKI in Enschede in 2003, Jasper Niens has been making 'architectonic
installations’. He builds constructions in public spaces but also works in institutional contexts. Installa-
tions with numerous doors, blocks barricading the way: these may be acceptable constructions in an
exhibition, but does the same go for our over-regulated public space? Niens’ work keeps returning to
the direct confrontation with the viewer and challenges unspoken conventions regarding the use of
public and semi-public space. www.galeriewest.nl
Image: Jasper Niens, The handicap principle II, 2009, Art Forum Berlin
10 February 2011, 20.00hr – announcement winner Dolf Henkes Award at TENT
Tent
Witte de Withstraat 50 - Rotterdam
Tuesday - Sunday: 11 to 18
Admission Prices
euro 4 TENT
euro 2 (<18 years, CJP, student, 65 +, groups of 10)
euro 7 combined ticket Witte de With & TENT
Free <12 years, Museum, Rotterdampas