Han Nefkens Donates 2019 Montblanc Arts Patronage Award Winnings to Aziz Hazara

On July 8, collector and writer Han Nefkens revealed that he will be donating his cash winnings from his 2019 Montblanc Arts Patronage Award to artist Aziz Hazara. Nefkens received the patronage award in May from the Montblanc Cultural Foundation, in recognition of his steadfast support for the arts through the Han Nefkens Foundation and the Art Aids Foundation, which he established. He was given EUR 15,000 (USD 16,800) to support a project of his choice. 

Distributed as part of a mentorship grant administered by his eponymous foundation, Nefkens’s donation will provide Hazara with the opportunity to produce several new video installations. Two of these pieces will be launched at the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, titled “NIRIN.” In October 2020, the two works will travel to the Fundació Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona, where they will be displayed among the other new commissions, as part of Hazara’s first solo exhibition in Europe. Hazara will also have the chance to enroll in a residency program abroad, and receive curatorial guidance.

Born in Afghanistan in 1992, Hazara bridges multiple media to probe questions of “identity, memory, archive, conflict and migration in the context of power relation, geopolitics, and panopticism,” in his words. Earlier this year, he was shortlisted for the Han Nefkens Foundation – ArcoMadrid Video Art Award during the ArcoMadrid art fair. In 2018, he was an artist-in-residence at the Embassy of Foreign Artists in Geneva. His work has been included in various international group exhibitions, such as “Power Nap,” at the Yerevan Modern Art Museum (2018), and “Urban Implosion” at the Asia Culture Center in Gwangju (2017).  

Leora Joy Jones is an editorial intern of ArtAsiaPacific.

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