We all know Piet Mondriaan and De Stijl, but who has ever heard ofFriedrich Vordemberghe-Gildewart? Well, we didn't until we got an assignment from GEM Den Haag (Museum of Contemporary Art in The Hague).

Apparently, Vordemberge-Gildewart (1899-1962) was one of the first artists to create an entirely abstract body of work(!). His innovative spirit was akin to that of the artists of De Stijl, the movement he joined in 1925. We highly recommend looking up some of his works.
Back in the late 70s, Ilse Engelina Vordemberge, née Leda (1906-1981), widow of Friedrich VG. had decreed that each year one artist from a European country should get a grant out of the estate “to live and work absolutely free from care for one year”*.

Fast forward to ‘81 when the then founded The Vordemberge-Gildewart Foundation started its work through the last will of Ilse Leda. Since 1983, the foundation gives out the yearly award (presented in a different European country each year) through an international jury and supports research, publications and exhibitions on the work of Vordemberge-Gildewart.
The Netherlands has hosted the ceremony twice before, in 1989 and 2000, when Guido Geelen and Mark Manders received the award.

At the beginning of 2020, GEM Den Haag organised the Vordemberghe-Gildewart award. Ten artists had been selected for this prestigious prize and were exhibited together. Yours truly have been requested to design the catalog which turned out as a nice representation of the various selected artists.

Next door neighbor Het Kunstmuseum recently bought Konstruction No.5, one of the works of Vordemberghe-Gildewart , and planned on doing a VG exhibition parallel to the Award exhibition in GEM Den Haag.
More reason to bring back some recognizable shapes and colors of VG's work into our design of the award campaign and publication. All in honour of Vordemberge-Gildewart.

The ten nominees - Salim Bayri, Deborah Bowmann, Bob Eikelboom, Ricardo van Eyk, Eva Giolo, Nadia Guerroui, Sharon van Overmeiren, Emma van der Put, Dan Walwin and Charlott Weise – all studied arts in The Netherlands or Belgium.
The winner, Nadia Guerroui, was announced on Saturday, the 22nd of February. In view of the high level of all of this year’s nominees, the jury decided to also award an incentive prize to Eva Giolo.

A group show featuring work of the winner, and all other nominees, is at GEM museum of contemporary art until April 5th, 2020.