Van Bommel Van Dam Prize 2026

Name: Van Bommel Van Dam Prize 2026
Start: 2026-05-30T00:00:00+02:00
End: 2026-10-04T23:59:59+02:00
Location: Van Bommel Van Dam Prize 2026

30 May 2026 up to and including 4 October 2026

A prestigious prize for emerging artists

Meet the artists of tomorrow – the four nominees for the 2026 Van Bommel Van Dam Prize have been announced!

Taqwa Ali, Mario Sergio Alvarez, Magdalena Frauenberg and Krystel Geerts are in the running for this prestigious incentive prize, which has been in existence since 1977. Established by the founders of museum van Bommel van Dam with a single clear mission: to give emerging artists a platform at the moment when it really matters. Since then, the biennial prize has proven to be a springboard for emerging talent from the Netherlands and Germany.

The winner will be announced on Friday 29 May – marking the start of a free exhibition featuring work by all four nominees. On view until 4 October 2026.

30 May 2026 up to and including 4 October 2026
Free

About the prize

The four nominees were selected from candidates put forward by scouts Nico Anklam, Karen Archey, Julika Bosch, Lieneke Hulshof, Xander Karskens, Maia Kenney and Berber Meindertsma. The winner will be chosen by a three-member jury: artist Hadassah Emmerich, writer and art critic Hans den Hartog Jager, and Rieke Righolt, director of museum van Bommel van Dam. The prize? A cash sum of 5,000 euros and the purchase of a work for the museum’s collection.

The four nominees

Taqwa Ali (Sudan, 1997, studied in Maastricht, lives and works in the Netherlands) is an interdisciplinary artist who works with materials such as hibiscus, gum arabic, earth, clay and water. Not merely as raw materials, but as vessels for stories and memories. Her paintings, installations and sculptures explore landscapes – both in her native Sudan and in Limburg – as archives: shaped by displacement, ecological conditions and socio-political developments.

Cuban-born Mario Sergio Alvarez (Cuba, 1993, lives and works in Malden and Amsterdam) is a multidisciplinary artist who creates installations, paintings and videos. His art explores the relationship between identity, memory, migration and power, drawing inspiration from personal experiences. Through everyday objects such as second-hand furniture and fragmented narratives, he explores how stories of belonging and survival are constructed, transformed, and contested.

Magdalena Frauenberg (Austria, 1996, lives and works in Düsseldorf and Brussels) combines feminism with a visual language in which cultural signs have no fixed meaning. In her installations, photographs and videos, she draws on regional iconographies and art-historical references, among other things, to challenge notions of femininity.

Krystel Geerts (Netherlands, 1993, studied in Enschede and Ghent, lives and works in Amsterdam) is a multidisciplinary artist who takes the body as her starting point. In her sculptures, photographs and videos, she explores how environments and systems exert pressure on the body and how it responds. Geerts’ work asks what it means to speak from a female body, beyond imposed frameworks.

Previous winners

Previous winners include Peter Wehrens (in 1977), Ronald Tolman (in 1979), Jan van der Pol (in 1981), Piet Dieleman (in 1983), Toon Teeken (in 1985), Kries Sommers (in 1987), Freark van der Wal (in 1989), Noud van Dun (in 1992), Aafke Bennema (in 1995), Hjalmar Riemersma (in 1998), Sebastian Diaz Morales (in 2001), Sidi El Karchi (in 2004), Jack Reubsaet (in 2007), Marijn Akkermans (in 2010), Christoph Knecht (in 2013), Magdalena Kita (in 2016) and Donja Nasseri (in 2023).