Winner of 12th ABN AMRO Art Prize gets exhibition at Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam

The ABN AMRO Art Prize has been supporting promising artists in their development since 2004 and presents their work to the largest possible audience, so ABN AMRO is proud to announce that this year’s winner will for the first time get a solo exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. The bank and the museum have a shared mission of promoting equality and inclusion in the art sector. As the Art Prize now focuses on supporting female talent in the Netherlands, it provides a direct contribution to this mission. The prize also includes an amount of €10,000, a publication designed by Irma Boom and a second exhibition in the ABN AMRO Art Space in the Zuidas district. Some of the winner’s work will also be purchased for the ABN AMRO Art Collection.

Promoting female talent

Starting with this edition, the ABN AMRO Art Prize will be awarded to female talent in the Netherlands. Despite the fact that many positive initiatives are being undertaken to improve female representation in the art world, it remains necessary to promote this process. Female under-representation was recently identified in the study entitled ‘Vrouwelijke beeldend kunstenaars in Nederland’ (Female visual artists in the Netherlands), carried out by the Boekman Foundation on behalf of the Niemeijer Fonds Foundation, and had also been demonstrated previously by ‘Een nog onverteld verhaal’ (An Untold Story), a study published by WOMEN Inc. and ABN AMRO in 2022. That study also clearly showed that initiatives such as the ABN AMRO Art Prize have a positive effect on the economic value and visibility of artists and their work.

Partnership with Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

ABN AMRO’s sponsorship strategy focuses on accelerating equal opportunities. In order to promote equal opportunities and inclusion in the cultural sector, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and ABN AMRO entered into a multi-year partnership back in 2022. “The bank shares the ambition of the Stedelijk Museum to improve the representation of female artists. The Stedelijk has already taken clear action on this in its new collection exhibition, purchases and programming,” says Sander Bestevaar, Head of Partnerships, Events & Foundations at ABN AMRO. “In order to further increase the visibility of female talent, ABN AMRO is supporting several exhibitions by female creators at the Stedelijk Museum and the ‘Blikopeners’ (Eye-openers) young people programme as part of the collaboration. Giving the winner of the Art Prize’s 12th edition an exhibition at the most prestigious museum for contemporary and modern art allows us to contribute to this even more.”

Panel of experts

The quality and individual character of the work are leading criteria in determining the winner of the ABN AMRO Art Prize. The panel members for this edition are Christa Beaufort (Global Sustainability Manager, ABN AMRO), Danila Cahen (curator of ABN AMRO Art Collection), Natasja Kensmil (visual artist), Emily Pethick (Director of Rijksakademie of Visual Arts, Amsterdam) and Rein Wolfs (Director of Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam).

About the ABN AMRO Art Prize

The ABN AMRO Art Prize supports developing talent in the Netherlands. The bank’s aim is to offer artists some support and help them begin: from experiments or innovation to new career steps. The ABN AMRO Art Prize was created in 2004 based on the wish to support young talent and to promote interaction between artists with a variety of cultural backgrounds. At its launch, the award was aimed at artists who came from abroad and were living or working in the Netherlands. In 2015, the ABN AMRO Art Prize continued as a promotional award for talent in the Netherlands and focused on artists living in the Netherlands. For the past seven editions, the prize has included an exhibition of the winner’s work in Amsterdam’s H’ART Museum (formerly Hermitage Amsterdam).

Based on the realisation that gender equality is not a given in the art world and that women are highly underrepresented in many parts of the art world, the Art Prize will from this edition onwards be awarded to female talent. Starting with this twelfth edition, the winner’s exhibition will be held in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. ABN AMRO will continue to be a social partner of H’ART Museum and a key partner in its educational programme.

The Nami Nami Noooom,Yalla Tnaaam exhibition by Mounira Al Solh, who won the award in 2023, can be seen at the H’ART Museum in Amsterdam until 15 May. Her second presentation, Pocket Rhythms, can be seen in the public ABN AMRO Art Space at our head office in the Zuidas district until 31 May.

For more information about the award and the previous winner, go to: https://art-heritageabnamro.nl/kunstcollectie/abn-amro-kunstprijs.