The 'H+F Curatorial Grant' is an ambitious and original initiative which allows the FRAC Nord–Pas de Calais (Dunkirk/France) in close partnership with the private collector Han Nefkens (H+F Collection) and the De Appel arts centre (Amsterdam/NL), to give young international curators the opportunity to participate in the development of exhibition projects based on the collection of FRAC Nord-Pas-de-Calais. This grant, which was launched in 2007, offers emerging art curators a unique infrastructure and environment with free access to a research and documentation centre as well as to one of the best French collections of contemporary art. The FRAC acts as an extra-ordinary framework for these future professionals of contemporary art by helping them to develop and implement their projects. Irène Aristizábal (Colombia/Spain) was selected by a panel composed of Han Nefkens (H+F Collection), Ann Demeester (Director of De Appel) and Hilde Teerlinck (Director of the FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais) as the new candidate. She will become part of the FRAC's team as an assistant curator, coordinating local, national and international exhibition-projects and bringing a fresh view on the collection as well as on the development project of the future FRAC.

The video-installation Double Light – a dialogue between Pipilotti Rist and Joan Miró – will be added to the Foundation’s collection as a result of a donation by writer and art collector Han Nefkens. The installation has been produced for Rist’s upcoming exhibition Pipilotti Rist. Friendly Game – Electronic Feelings in the Joan Miró Foundation. This gift is the first by Nefkens to an art museum in Spain. Han Nefkens (Rotterdam, 1954) purchases international contemporary art with the express aim of giving it on long-term loan to museums. “For me,” he says, “it’s about much, much more than owning a work of art: it’s about sharing a vision with other people.” In line with this philosophy, Nefkens has provided support for the production of one of the new works that Swiss video artist Pipilotti Rist is preparing for her forthcoming show at the Foundation, Pipilotti Rist. Friendly Game – Electronic Feelings, which will run from 8 July to 1 November 2010. When the exhibition ends, the piece will be included in the Foundation’s collection as a gift from Han Nefkens. He says, “I would be happy to enable the artist who is so close to my heart to make a work especially for the city I have been in love with for so many years. The work by Pipilotti is my dowry to Barcelona.” Winner of the Joan Miró Prize in 2009, Pipilotti Rist has expressed her admiration for Miró on several occasions, in particular the bold use of colour that she also employs in her art. Rist articulates this admiration and respect in Double Light, a dialogue with Joan Miró achieved through the projection of a video on to Woman (1968), one of Miró’s sculptures owned by the Foundation. It is an encounter between the two artists that combines their various visual codes. The first work of art that Nefkens purchased, in 2001, was precisely a video-installation by Rist, which formed the start of the H+F Collection, named after Nefkens and his Mexican partner Felipe. This collection of contemporary art is made up of photographs, videos, installations and paintings by artists of such renown as Jeff Wall, Sam Taylor-Wood, Bill Viola, Shirin Neshat, Felix González-Torres and others. Nefkens has decided to leave the works on long-term loan to museums in the Netherlands and elsewhere, such as the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, Stichting de Pont in Tilburg, Huis Marseille in Amsterdam and FRAC Nord–Pas de Calais in Dunkirk, which currently has about 50 of Nefkens works on loan. Since 2005, Nefkens has mainly bought and commissioned works for specific exhibitions and other projects, either himself or through the ArtAids Foundation and the H+F Collection. Double Light will remain at the Joan Miró Foundation thanks to the generosity of Han Nefkens, who considers that “Giving is one of the most underrated values in society. By setting up something that I can share with others, I become part of the world. Sharing is the antidote to loneliness. When you share, you are not alone.” Fundació Joan Miró

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen has purchased a 'football cage' with the support of Han Nefkens’ H+F Patronage. The art work entitled ‘Apollo’ by the German artist Olaf Nicolai has been sited in the museum’s central courtyard since 2008. To celebrate the acquisition, the museum is publishing a book on the work entitled ‘Olaf Nicolai, Apollo’. Football cage ‘Apollo’ is better known to the museum’s visitors as the ‘football cage’. Everyone who visits the museum may kick a ball around in this object, which was made specially for the courtyard. The players’ movements are reflected in the mirrors, generating a stroboscopic effect. The design practice Thonik, which is responsible for the museum’s house style, designed a floor painting for the courtyard in consultation with Olaf Nicolai. The floor painting amplifies the work’s interplay of lines and reflections. Olaf Nicolai Olaf Nicolai (1962) lives and works in Berlin. His work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions around the world since the early 1990s including Documenta X (1997) and the Venice Biennale in 2001 and 2005. Olaf Nicolai has dealt with similar questions and themes in earlier ‘football works’. Examples include his camouflage-painted goalposts featured in the well-known ZDF classic ‘das aktuelle Sportstudio’ (2001) and the edition ‘Ballack’ (2004-2006), a collection of press photos of the German football icon, in which his facial details were greatly magnified. Apollo was initiated and funded by H+F Patronage. H+F Patronage Museum Boijmans van Beuningen Illustrated: Olaf Nicolai, Apollo, 2008 Photo: Bob Goedewaagen

The writer and collector Han Nefkens has just announced an exciting new partnership with Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. The news was made public during Nefkens’s presentation of the H+F Fashion Award, which he established. The five-year partnership between H+F Fashion on the Edge and the museum will oversee the H+F Fashion Award, enable the commissioning and acquisition of works that explore the borders of fashion and art and mount a major exhibition. H+F Fashion on the Edge was established in 2005 with the aim of stimulating the dialogue between art and fashion through annual purchases that were exhibited at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht. In recent years the foundation has developed an initiative to support challenging projects by a small group of internationally renowned fashion designers, including Viktor & Rolf and Hussein Chalayan. New talent H+F Fashion on the Edge and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen will be working together from 2010 to 2015. Over this period a budget of 700,000 euros will be made available for exhibitions, commissions, acquisitions and interventions within the museum’s ongoing programme in order to realize the initiative’s aims, with a special focus on non-Western designers and artists exploring the field between fashion and art. The biennial H+F Fashion Award, which has been awarded to new and interesting talent since 2007 and was recently presented to Charles LeDray, will continue as part of this new partnership. The award facilitates the realization of a specially commissioned project that will be given on long-term loan to the museum. During the years in which the prize is not awarded H+F Fashion on the Edge will sponsor an alternative commission for an installation to be exhibited at the museum. Collection and exhibition Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen has built up a modest yet fascinating collection of objects that explore the experimental zone between fashion and visual art. Over the next five years the H+F Fashion on the Edge project will enable the museum to acquire key pieces in this fertile area. The intention is to bring together the entire H+F Fashion on the Edge collection, part of which is currently being housed in the Centraal Museum. The partnership with Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen will be crowned in 2015 with a major survey exhibition. Han Nefkens has had a longstanding relationship with Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Between 2004 and 2009 his partnership with the museum, H+F Patronage, enabled the museum to commission exciting contemporary art projects by Pipilotti Rist, Sylvie Zijlmans and Andro Wekua, and to acquire works by artists such as Olafur Eliasson. H+F Fashion on the Edge Museum Boijmans van Beuningen