vBvD Prize

Background The Van Bommel Van Dam Prize is presented once every three years to a promising, professional artist younger than 35 years of age and active in 2-dimensional work (painting, drawing, photography and printing). The prize comprises a certificate, an amount in money of 5,000 euro, participation in an exhibition and the purchase of a work of art. The Van Bommel Van Dam Prize is a Van Bommel van Dam Foundation initiative. In 2009, a few amendments were made. Until this point, the prize had focused on Dutch artists. To emphasize Venlo’s profile as a city in the Euregion, and as a link between the Netherlands and Germany, it was decided that German artists could also become eligible for the prize. In addition, the system of open applications was departed from. From 2009, selectors are employed. They are invited to propose one young artist each year. Multiple works by these artists are exhibited, from which the jury announces a winner. SelectorsTo ensure that the prize actually becomes a Dutch-German prize, four selectors from the Netherlands are invited and four from Germany. Each of them proposes a single candidate. This artist resides and works in the Netherlands or Germany. Selectors commit themselves to two editions of the prize and are subsequently gradually replaced. For the fourteenth (2010) and fifteenth edition (2013) of the Van Bommel Van Dam Prize, the group of selectors includes the following people: 

• Karin Arink, artist and lecturer at Willem de Kooning Academie, Rotterdam
• Maaike Gouwenberg, initiator Expodium, Utrecht, and curator If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, Amsterdam
• Arno Kramer, artist and curator of, for example, Into Drawing
• Markus Lörwald, artist and lecturer at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
• Hartmut Neumann, artist and lecturer at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Braunschweig
• Anna Schneider, curator Platform3, Munich
• Flos Wildschut, writer and curator especially in the field of photography

Jury members They jury of experts, comprising five people, is also a German-Dutch mix. The chair is in the hands of the Van Bommel van Dam Foundation. The director from the Museum van Bommel van Dam is, in his or her capacity, a member of the jury. The three members of the jury not connected with the foundation or museum commit themselves for two editions of the prize, after which they are gradually changed. For the Van Bommel Van Dam Prize 2010 the jury comprises:

• Martin de Jong, chair Van Bommel van Dam Foundation
• Reinhard Spieler, director Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen
• Rick Vercauteren, director Museum van Bommel van Dam
• Alex de Vries, writer and adviser in the field of modern art