Neo Rauch
Eija Liisa Ahtila
Harald Szeemann
Zdenka Badovina
Rosa Martinez
Alexander van Grevenstein
Winner or The Vincent van Gogh Biennial Award for Contemporary Art in Europe
The German painter Neo Rauch
(Leipzig, 1960), winner of the second
edition of The Vincent van Gogh
Biennial Award for Contemporary Art in
Europe, will receive the prize on 1 June
2002. The chairman of the jury, Harald
Szeemann, will personally present the
prize, worth EUR 50,000, at a
ceremony to be held in Maastricht.
Neo Rauch, who lives and works in Leipzig, is considered
one of today�s leading European painters. His work is
rooted in the German Realist painting tradition. In spite of
the typically bleached, chalk-like colours he uses and the
sparse way in which he uses them, his paintings have
great eloquence. Rauch�s work is at once animated and
serene, evocative of solidified fragments just before
something big is set to happen. The atmosphere of his
paintings, in which archetypal human figures in everyday
scenes and desolate utopian backdrops or industrial
locations take up pre-eminent positions, is suffused with a
sense of hallucination. In these days of photography and
video, Rauch has remained true to painting, his medium.
The jury of THE VINCENT 2002 consists of chairman Harald
Szeemann, who has organised several exhibitions, including
the Venice Biennale in 1999 and 2001, Zdenka Badovinac,
director and curator of the museum of modern art in
Ljubljana, and Rosa Martinez, independent curator from
Barcelona, who has also organised various exhibitions,
including the Biennales of S�o Paulo and Santa Fe. Other
members of the jury are Eija-Liisa Ahtila, the Finnish artist
and winner of THE VINCENT 2000 and Alexander van
Grevenstein, director of the Bonnefanten Museum. At a
meeting held in September 2001 in Maastricht, the jury
unanimously recommended Neo Rauch as prize winner.
The prize-giving ceremony of THE VINCENT will take place
in the Maastricht City Hall at 6:00 p.m. on 1 June. As well
as presenting the prize to Neo Rauch, Harald Szeemann will
submit the jury report and give a lecture entitled �State of
the Arts�. On Sunday 2 June, Szeemann will also officially
open the exhibition to the public. Forty paintings by NEO
RAUCH will be on display at the Bonnefanten Museum until
6 October 2002.
THE VINCENT is organised by the Bonnefanten Museum in
Maastricht and was initiated by The Broere Charitable
Foundation. The prize was set up in memory of Monique
Zajfen, a patron of the arts. THE VINCENT is also
supported by the Province of Limburg and the municipality
of Maastricht to commemorate the 1992 European Treaty
of Maastricht. The exhibition is sponsored in part by the
EuMan Group. Under the chairmanship of Sir Nicolas Serota
(GB), THE VINCENT 2000 was awarded to the Finnish video
artist Eija-Liisa Ahtila.
The collection of contemporary art has only recently been assembled and contains works by
an international group of artists. It consists of a Seminal Collection dominated by prominent
artists from the Minimal Art and Arte Povera movements. Important works by Marcel
Broodthaers, Luciano Fabro, Sol LeWitt, Bruce Nauman, Robert Ryman, Richard Serra and
others provide a solid basis for the young collection. These works also offer a frame of
reference for new generations of artists who now also occupy key positions in the art world.
The museum focuses on individual artists (and less on movements) and has thus far acquired
multiple works by Ren� Dani�ls, Fons Haagmans, Imi Knoebel, Gary Hume, Marien
Schouten, Luc Tuymans, Franz West and others. Recent acquisitions include works by
Roman Signer, Thomas Hirschhorn and Suchan Kinoshita. In future, the museum intends to
emphasise the most recent developments in art.
Bonnefanten Museum
Avenue C�ramique 250 Postbus 1735 NL-6201 BS Maastricht
Opening hours:
Tuesday to Sunday 11.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m.
The museum is also open on holidays which fall on a Monday.