The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture
(Fonds BKVB) awarded Suzanne Oxenaar, Founder and Artistic Director of the Lloyd Hotel & Cultural Embassy the Benno Premsela Prize.The Award Ceremony takes place on 4 December 2009.
About the Awards
Fonds BKVB is the national body responsible for enabling visual artists, designers, architects and cultural mediators to develop their work in a variety of ways. A traditional activity of the Fonds BKVB has been to present a number of oeuvre awards as well as the Award for Art Criticism and the Benno Premsela Award. These awards are among the most renowned awards in the field of Visual Arts in The Netherlands. The winners of the Fonds BKVB oeuvre awards are visual artist Willem Oorebeek, designer and initiator of Mediamatic Willem Velthoven and architect Herman Zeinstra. The award for art criticism is for journalist Hans van Dijk.
Benno Premsela Award for Suzanne Oxenaar
The Benno Premsela Award of € 40.000 goes to Suzanne Oxenaar. This award is for a person who plays an inspiring and stimulating role for more generations of artists, designers or architects. From the jury report: "In all her projects Suzanne Oxenaar places the visual arts in the heart of society and makes them accessible in an unorthodox manner. She is a stimulator and an unrelenting optimist who succeeds in getting the impossible done.”
Oxenaar was involved in setting up among other the restaurant Supperclub and the Vijfde Seizoen, a temporary workspace for artists in a psychiatric hospital in Den Dolder. She was curator for the Foundation for Art in Public Space (SKOR) for which she worked in extreme places, like prisons. For the design of the Lloyd Hotel and the concept and programme of the Cultural Embassy, she continues to work with the crop of upcoming and more established artists, designers and architects.
The award is called after designer and initiator Benno Premsela (1920-1997), who was a prominent figure in his field and is known for his minimalist designs in which beauty and functionality are closely connected. Previous award winners are among others Renny Ramakers and Gijs Bakker from Droog Design (2007) and Riekje Swart from Galerie Swart (2002).
