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