On Thursday 13 July 2023 in Museum JAN, the Amstelveense Kunstprijs van de Raad (Amstelveen City Council Art Prize) was awarded for the first time to a graduate of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie The prize is an initiative of the city council and gives young, promising talents the opportunity to present and develop themselves. This first prize goes to Eve Boontje. They graduated this year from The Large Glass department.
Amstelveen wants to attract young and promising artists. It is therefore important that new talents are given the opportunity to practice the art profession well and have the space to experiment. The winner of the Council Art Prize will receive a project studio in the municipal studio building Ateliers 24 for the duration of one year. "It's a great initiative by the council to literally give talented artists the space to develop in this way," says Alderman Herbert Raat (Arts and Culture). "It fits seamlessly into our cultural agenda: The City as a Stage, where we want to encourage and provide a stage for emerging artists. From the many entries we have received, it seems that students are very enthusiastic about this prize. We therefore hope that the Council Art Prize will continue and become a much sought-after prize among budding artists".
Museum JAN
Museum JAN was so impressed by the work of emerging talent, glass artist Eve Boontje (2000), that it decided to purchase the winning work for its own collection. This was made possible thanks to the Friends of Museum JAN Foundation.
Marieke Uildriks, director of Museum JAN: "We are very pleased with this purchase. Museum JAN excels in glass art and our ambition is to encourage young creators who dare to work with glass. Eve Boontje's work immediately appealed to us; it is very poetic, narrative and contemporary. We are therefore very grateful to the Friends of the Museum for allowing us to enrich our permanent collection with this beautiful contemporary glass object".
Gerrit Rietveld Academie
The city council has indicated to look for up-and-coming talent at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie for the art prize. The Gerrit Rietveld Academie Graduation Show is an excellent opportunity to discover new artists and took place from 5 to 9 July. During this exhibition, the Visual Arts Advisory Committee (ABK) assessed the work of 22 graduate candidates who had applied for the Council Art Prize. The ABK had to choose from a large number of high quality works, but in the end they chose one winner.