Prize for Young Dutch Art Criticism 2010
In 2010, the Prize for Young Dutch Art Criticism will be awarded for a second time. The prize is an initiative of de Appel arts centre, the Fonds BKVB (Dutch Fund for Visual Arts, Architecture and Design) and Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, and is organized in collaboration with Dutch-Flemish cultural house deBuren.
The Prize for Young Dutch Art Criticism was founded two years ago, motivated by the fast-shrinking space for art criticism in the general media. The organizers do not believe art criticism is disappearing completely, but that it is moving increasingly to the professional magazines and the blogosphere. With this award, the initiators make a plea for the preservation of the cultural pages in the press. Nowadays young talents are developing themselves through self-founded initiatives in order to become the art critics and essayists of tomorrow. The Prize for Young Dutch Art Criticism puts them under the limelight and gives them the opportunity to profile themselves on a wider platform.
The Prize for Young Dutch Art Criticism is open to participants up to 35 years of age and will be awarded in the categories of Review and Essay. For both categories 3 to 6 articles will be nominated to compete for the respective prizes of € 7,500 and € 10,000. Besides the first prize, two general prizes of € 500 will be awarded in each category.
The Dutch weekly De Groene Amsterdammer and the Flemish weekly Knack are the media partners of the prize and will publish the winning Essay and the (summarized) jury report. The winner of the Review category will receive a commission to write a new article in consultation with the editors. The nominated articles will feature in a special section on the Prize for Young Dutch Art Criticism website with comments from the jury.
In addition to the awarding of prizes, the Prize for Young Dutch Art Criticism has the objective of encouraging and creating visibility for young writing initiatives, as well as stimulating the debate about the position and function of art criticism. To this end, the organization has redesigned its website to include space for relevant discussions on art criticism in a section titled ‘Forum’. The organizers of the prize encourage readers of the website to contribute pieces via info [at] jongekunstkritiek.net.
Additionally, the new site offers a platform to highlight remarkable articles and initiatives. The jury members of the Prize for Young Dutch Art Criticism will contribute to the section ‘In Focus’ about their position on art criticism by offering an example of a piece of good writing, providing a brief motivation for their choice. The authors of the selected articles will receive a modest remuneration for their cooperation. ‘In Focus’ also provides an overview of several young writing initiatives, including 8WEEKLY, Rekto:Verso, Kunsthuis SYB, and Tubelight among others.
The jury of the Prize for Young Art Criticism 2010 consists of: Karl van den Broeck (Editor in Chief Knack), Ronald Ockhuysen (Chief editor Art and Media, Het Parool), Marc Ruyters (Editor in Chief, H ART Magazine), Xandra Schutte (Editor in Chief, De Groene Amsterdammer), Barbara Visser (Visual artist), Lotte de Voeght (contributing editor, Rekto: Verso and Assistant curator, Extra City) and Christiaan Weijts (novelist and essayist) and will be chaired by Maarten Doorman (Professor of Criticism of Arts and Culture, University of Amsterdam).
The deadline for submission to the Prize for Young Dutch Art Criticism is July 31, 2010. Entries can be made digitally via through: inzending [at] jongekunstkritiek.net. More information about criteria and requirements can be found on www.jongekunstkritiek.net.