Han Nefkens
Foundation
Video
Han Nefkens
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Han Nefkens © Roberto Ruiz
Portrait of a Philanthropist: Han Nefkens
ArtReview Partnership with Han Nefkens Foundation
23 May 2025
Hilde Teerlinck, director of Han Nefkens Foundation, and Han Nefkens. Photo: Nguyen Thuy Hang
Founded in 2009 by Dutch writer and collector Han Nefkens and directed by Hilde Teerlinck, the Han Nefkens Foundation focuses on grants and commissions that support the production of video art. Nefkens, who trained as a journalist in the US and France, working for more than a decade as a radio correspondent in Mexico, turned to collecting contemporary art after encountering the immersive video installations of Pipilotti Rist. Nefkens’s philanthropic activities in art, funded with family money (his father was an architect who later turned to commercial real estate development), have consistently had a public dimension; he began purchasing works in 2000, with the aim from the start of acquiring artworks for museums. His H+F Collection, featuring a range of media, began making long-term loans and eventual bequests to museums across Europe. He also began the ArtAids Foundation in 2006, commissioning artists to make work that helped to raise awareness and support those living with HIV and AIDS. (Nefkens himself found out he was HIV-positive in 1987.) Both these organisations have since made way for the activities of the Han Nefkens Foundation, which in the past has additionally supported fiction writers, but currently focuses exclusively on video art. The foundation acts as a funder of and mediator for art institutions producing new work, while neither collecting nor owning any of the resulting artworks itself. (Nefkens is instead perhaps a collector of conversations and connections: the foundation observes, but does not vote, on artist selection panels.) The organisation works with a set of partner institutions who, in the case of the foundation’s grants, have committed to exhibiting the new work; and in the case of co-commissions, to the work becoming part of the institutions’ collections. Last year saw grants given to Som Supaparinya, Natasha Tontey and Panos Aprahamian, as well as the commissioning of work by Guadeloupean artist Minia Biabiany, which will be co-owned by MACBA, Barcelona; MUAC, Mexico City; and The Bass, Miami. A set of international curators, critics and directors nominate artists, while successful candidates are selected from this shortlist by a jury made up of the directors and curators of partner institutions. With video art as this era’s dominant medium – easy to transport and display, difficult to monetise – Nefkens has found a means to ensure its presence in art institutions’ future holdings.
Thao Nguyen Phan, Monsoon Melody, 2020 (installation view, Wiels, Brussels). Photo: Philippe De Gobert. Courtesy the artist
ArtReview Where does your passion for art come from, and what inspired you to start the foundation?
Han Nefkens I was brought up in a house with art, but it was antiques and paintings from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, definitely not contemporary art. I remember very clearly one day – I must have been about eight or nine – I went into our sitting room and I saw a painting of Madonna with a child. Obviously, it had been there all the time, but only then did I see it. Perhaps it was the way the light fell, but I was mesmerised by something that had been in our house all this time. That alerted me to the idea that art is something you can look at so many times, and see things so differently each time you look at it. From that time on, I started to look around with the enjoyment of watching. But I never thought I’d have a role in the artworld.
Growing up in a quiet suburb of Rotterdam, I felt very isolated. I felt that I wasn’t able to connect with the children my own age. I had so many different interests. It’s this situation I’ve been thinking a lot about, the situation of being an outsider. An outsider has the privilege of having a view of the world from a distance. On the other hand, the price to pay for that is this sense of loneliness, of not being part of the rest of the world. It’s double-sided.
Why do artists and writers like myself keep working? You can make an artwork and you can write, to explore things and to express yourself. But what is the need to share that with the rest of the world, to take that next step? I think the need to share work with the rest of the world is our way of connecting with that world. We become part of the world a little bit, we become a little bit less of an outsider. Except that the feeling doesn’t last very long; because right away, after finishing one piece, in my case, I feel like writing another. It’s the same with artists. That’s the motor that’s led right through to everything, both my writing and the creation of the foundation. The idea behind the foundation is to help people who have the same drive, but through video art.
AR What do you think art has to offer society?
HN Art offers a different viewpoint, it shows the viewer the way the artist views the world. After you’ve seen good work, you go out on the street and you see the world differently somehow. The other part is the connection with other cultures. Some video art is not so easy, but even art you don’t like, you keep on thinking about why you don’t like it. Something happens. It changes you in a way.
Musquiqui Chihying at MoCA Taipei, 2021. Courtesy the artist
AR What role is there for art philanthropy?
HN One, it’s good for society: philanthropy can make projects possible that wouldn’t get financing in any other way, because they don’t fit into certain models, government-wise, or certain other institutions. That creates liberty. It also creates opportunities for artists to make work. In our case, for example, artists from South and Southeast Asia who don’t get financing because they’re not on the radar of bigger foundations. Secondly, I don’t think there’s anybody who has participated in these projects who doesn’t feel afterwards a great sense of satisfaction. It’s a really wonderful feeling to see a work of art that wouldn’t have been there without you. It’s rewarding for the philanthropist, though I don’t like that word at all.
AR Could you explain how your foundation operates?
HN The way the foundation works is always in collaboration with other art institutions. We’re working now with about 60 different art institutions all over the world, and it’s always from a point of equality. I think it’s a really important point that the art institutions we work with have a sense of ownership, that they were there right from the beginning. That informs the whole procedure of selecting a candidate. This procedure is immensely important to me, because it’s really the way I see life and see society: listening to others.
In a way, I provide the environment for art institutions to have a conversation among themselves, and it’s important to listen. We’re so used to living in a society where conversations are really sort of mutual monologues – you know, one person talks and the other waits until it’s time for them to talk, but there’s no real listening. Because a decision has to be made, the art institutions listen to each other talk about why a particular work might or might not be suitable for an art institution, and it requires generosity from all the institutions. The interesting thing is that, during the conversation, the thoughts about which artist could get the grant or the commis- sion changes, and in the end, they change because they listen to others. They think about it in another way. I find that so uplifting, to have a conversation that really leads to something, a choice that everybody feels happy about, but that’s not within the agenda.
AR Did the structure of the foundation evolve organically, or were there other models that influenced you?
HN There are no models like this, it has developed organically. In the beginning, when we started commissioning with art institutions, we kept a copy of each video for ourselves. We did that because that’s what’s being done by other foundations, right? But then we thought, what are we going to do with that copy? We decided to ask the artist for a viewing copy, so we can show the work when we need, and the artist has an extra copy to sell. The idea of not expressing our opinion also evolved because I asked myself, ‘How can I lead a conversation in an honest way?’ If I have an agenda, I cannot, so I prefer not to have an agenda. If I were the one to choose, it would always be the artist who goes with my aesthetic, or what I’m looking for in my private collection. But in this case, artists are chosen who might not have been my first choice, but I learned to appreciate it, so it’s a really enriching experience for me as well.
AR Do you think there are best-practice models for philanthropies?
HN Best practice is no agenda. Not only for ethical reasons, but also because of the surprises it brings. I remember I saw a video by an artist for the first time, I’m not going to tell you who. I thought, ‘Oh, my God, what’s this?’ And then I looked at it again and again, and now it’s one of my favourite videos, because it took me time to understand it. If you had an agenda, you would never have got there. It would have been the safe one, beautiful one, the poetic one. That would have been my choice, and it’s important that it wasn’t, to then have such a dynamic, lively work.
Korakrit Arunanondchai, Songs for Dying (still), 2021. Courtesy the artist
AR Would you say then that personal taste has no part in how the foundation is run? Or did it at one time, when the foundation was collecting works?
HN No part, no. At the beginning, the decision was always made with others, so our voice was one in five. But I did notice that sometimes others would sort of look at me to see what my choice was, and that’s when I said, ‘No, this is not what I want’.
AR Do you have a favourite artist or artwork?
HN I don’t believe in lists of favourites, because then you have to compare all sorts of things that really are incomparable, they’re so completely different. What I can tell you is that I’m excited, of course, about the work we’ve produced with our artists. I’m really proud of their work, I’m also very excited about the new projects that we have, and that’s what I anticipate with pleasure.
AR How do you go about selecting your partners?
HN Everything happens in a very organic way. Face-to-face conversations are really important. The scouts are people we know, or people that people we know know. Most of the scouts are young people, and later they move up and they become curators or even directors, so we already have contact that way. Sometimes our artists get an exhibition in an art institution, and then we get to know the institution that way. It really is all very fluid.
In the beginning, we had to go and tell institutions about what we do. But now they come to us and ask if we would like to collaborate with them, and then we can decide if that’s a fitting partnership or not. For the grants, we have five or six institutions, and we have to renew them constantly, because some institutions decide to do something else, or their focus shifts from South Asia to Southeast Asia. It moves around a lot as well. So again, I come back to the same point again: it’s always through contact and conversations with other people.
AR The number of institutions that you’re working with varies from year to year; is there a limit to what you can manage? If a new collaborator comes in, does someone else have to go?
HN We never tell somebody to go; they go out of business or shift to another direction. The limit is really about time, because we want it to be personal. We don’t want to set up an organisation where there are all sorts of other people. We want to get to know the art. That’s the fun, that’s why we do it. So there is obviously a limit to what we can handle timewise, but that doesn’t mean that now we’re not open to more collaborations.
Jury meeting at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo. From left to right: Suhanya Raffel, Eugene Tan, Han Nefkens, Mami Kataoka and Hilde Teerlinck. Photo: Tayama Tatsuyuki.
AR How do you measure the success of your collaborations with artists and other parties?
HN At a recent meeting we looked at several of the artists that we’ve worked with lately, and how many exhibitions they had besides the ones we had staged with them. We were incredibly surprised to see that all of them had had a total of about 24 exhibitions with the work we produced, or the work was bought by an art institution like Tate Modern, or they were given a commission by another foundation. The work that we produced was shown in so many other art institutions than the ones we work with, and we hadn’t even realised that. I think that’s a measure of a sort of lubrication and acceleration, and a sign of success.
AR Are there plans for the foundation after you’re no longer involved day to day?
HN I mean, when I die is when I’ll no longer be involved in anything. The foundation could continue on for about 10 or 15 years, to finish the projects that have been started. But it’s not that I’ve built a monument. The foundation won’t be there in 100 years, it’s too personal really.
AR Earlier, you said you don’t like the word ‘philanthropist’.
HN Well, at least not for me. It sounds a bit condescending towards the people you collaborate with, that it’s just good doing good. That’s not the way I experience it at all. To me, it’s a collaboration with so many different people, and the collaboration itself is what gives me joy. So yes, I’m the one who puts in the money; we put in ideas as well. But that’s equal to the art institutions, who put in their ideas, and their staff and crew; and then obviously the artists put in their part. So we all put in our parts. It’s very important that it’s equal. And ‘philanthropist’ does not cover that.
The Han Nefkens Foundation
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Forging Connections with the Han Nefkens Foundation
By Lorenza Pignatti | Translated by Rosalind Furness | Barcelona, 9 August 2024
Left to right: Suhanya Raffel (Director of M+, Hong Kong), Eugene Tan (CEO Singapore Art Museum), Han Nefkens (Director Han Nefkens Foundation), Mami Kataoka (Director Mori Art Museum, Tokyo), and Hilde Teerlinck (Director Han Nefkens Foundation) at the jury meeting of the Han Nefkens Foundation, Mori Art Museum, M+, and SAM – Moving Image Commission 2023, at Mori Art Museum. Courtesy Han Nefkens Foundation.
Giving, caring, and nurturing talent: these are the core principles on which Dutch writer and patron Han Nefkens established his eponymous non-profit foundation for video art in 2009.
As Han Nefkens told me in Barcelona, 'Giving is one of the most underrated values in society. By setting up something that I can share with others, I open myself up to the world. I can't imagine anything more enriching than that.'
In collaboration with 60 global art institutions—including internationally acclaimed museums such as M+ in Hong Kong, MAXXI in Rome, Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, and Singapore Art Museum as well as smaller initiatives such as San Art in Ho Chi Minh City—the Foundation has created two grants. Established in 2018, the 15,000 USD Video Art Production Grant helps emerging artists with film production costs and the 100,000 USD Moving Image Commission, launched in 2021, supports mid-career artists in taking the next step. In the case of the Moving Image Commissions, the produced work is donated to all of the participating institutions, so that the newly produced piece directly enters their collection. In the case of grants on the other hand, the work remains in the artist's possession.
The Foundation, which currently has seven active programmes ranging from production grants to commissions, operates as a kind of production hub that oversees and promotes video works by recipients from the moment they win their grant to the work's presentation in partner museums. This unique approach gives the artists unparalleled access to a far-reaching international platform, thanks to the global network of institutions involved.
The selection process for each grant is rigorous. Ten established independent curators, critics, and artists each nominate two candidates from a range of geographical regions. An international jury composed of directors and/or curators from the participating institutions and museums then chooses a winner from this shortlist.
Exhibition view: Erkan Özgen, Giving Voices, Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona (16 Nov 2018–24 Feb 2019). Photo: Roberto Ruiz.
The final selection meeting is moderated by Han Nefkens, with the Foundation's Director, Hilde Teerlinck, and Coordinator, Alessandra Biscaro, all of whom abstain from voting. 'We prefer to remain impartial for two reasons,' Nefkens clarified. 'The first is that we want to put ourselves in a listening position, to allow the directors and curators to choose the candidate that best meets the selection criteria. We prefer to facilitate the conversation freely without having an agenda. The second is that the Foundation doesn't collect the grant-winning works. We did collect them in the past, but we stopped about ten years ago. Today, it is all about forging connections—not just for me personally but between the artists and the institutions, between the artists themselves, and between the institutions. We look to give visibility to a generation of artists whose work is discussed and analysed by curators and directors from a broad range of institutions, even if they don't win the grant or the commission.'
The Foundation does not have an office. Nefkens, Teerlinck and Biscaro all work remotely. They have been digital nomads since before it was a lifestyle choice and the term became part of our everyday language. Nefkens and Teerlinck meet several times a week for highly productive 'mobile meetings', during which they stroll through the streets of Barcelona discussing current projects and brainstorming new ideas. With Biscaro they mainly catch up during grant ceremonies and at the openings of shows by the winning artists.
Exhibition view: Tekla Aslanishvili, A State in a State, Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona (8 October–27 November 2022). Photo: Roberto Ruiz.
I recall the words of Tekla Aslanishvili, winner of the Han Nefkens Foundation – Fundació Antoni Tàpies Video Art Production Grant in 2020, who I met while visiting her solo exhibition A State in a State at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, in 2022. Her video by the same title follows the construction of the railways from Baku in Azerbaijan to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi to Kars in Türkiye, documenting the fraught political tensions that have undergirded the Southern Caucasus region since the fall of the Soviet Union. Based between Berlin and her hometown of Tbilisi, the 36-year-old artist told me that she believes the Han Nefkens Foundation takes a particularly productive and supportive approach.
'Producing time-based work and surviving as a video artist is still fraught with difficulties: production costs are high, many exhibition spaces offer awkward settings for presenting such work, and compared to other mediums, it's hard to sell. There are few structures to support the younger generation of artists who are trying to stick to their medium without compromise, meaning many potential artworks will remain unrealised,' Aslanishvili pointed out.
'One unique aspect of the Han Nefkens Foundation,' she added, 'is their thorough approach to artist selection. In my case, the decision-making process took quite some time. This is because artists are selected based on their previous work, not by judging their forthcoming project proposals, and also because the grant was established in tandem with Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai, the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in Manila, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, and WIELS in Brussels. Once an artist has been chosen, however, there is an unprecedented level of trust placed in their work. Moreover, I think the Foundation is oriented towards granting the work suitable space for its maintenance and visibility.'
Montblanc Arts Patronage Award, Ceremony at Fundaciò Mirò in Barcelona, 2019. Photo: Roberto Ruiz.
The support that the Foundation provides is acknowledged not only by its grant-winning artists but also by institutions such as Fundación La Caixa, who recognised Nefkens' significant contribution with the Art and Patronage Award in 2017. In 2019, he won the Montblanc Arts Patronage Award, the prize money for which he gave to the Afghan artist Aziz Hazara in the form of a Mentorship Grant. The following year, the Foundation received the Friends of the Arts Award from the National Arts Council of Singapore.
Exhibition view: Nguyễn Trinh Thi, 47 Days, Sound-less, M+, Hong Kong (date–date 2024). Courtesy M+.
Suhanya Raffel, Director of M+ in Hong Kong, spoke to me about the way in which the Moving Image Commission is granted. 'There are discussions around the differences in histories, social relations, and political climates with which these local artists are working, which are always very positive because they are about the richness of the region that all of us want to engage with,' she said. 'We really value and admire the work of the Han Nefkens Foundation. I'm extremely grateful for the longevity of that relationship and how the Foundation works with artists in the region.' The inaugural collaboration between the Han Nefkens Foundation, M+, Mori Art Museum, and Singapore Art Museum, which took place in 2021, saw the grant go to the Vietnamese artist Nguyễn Trinh Thi, whose video 47 Days, Sound-less is currently on view at Mori Art Museum until 1 September.
Exhibition view: Thao Nguyen Phan, Monsoon Melody, WIELS, Brussels (1 February–26 April 2020). Photo: Philippe De Gobert.
'The Han Nefkens Foundation was the first to rigorously produce my video works in such an engaging and thoughtful way,' artist Thao Nguyen Phan told me at the opening of her solo exhibition Becoming Alluvium at the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona in 2019. 'The grant has reached exceptional artists in far-flung regions with authentic and original voices. It is a way of working that is economical but widely connected and deeply engaged.'
Born in 1987 in Ho Chi Minh City, where she lives and works, Nguyen Phan won the Han Nefkens – LOOP Barcelona Video Art Production Grant 2018, organised in collaboration with Fundació Joan Miró, WIELS, and Chisenhale Gallery. Becoming Alluvium presented the third and final instalment of her video trilogy, Monsoon Melody, that reflects on the evolving reality of life on the Mekong River in Vietnam in a narrative that interweaves historical fact with popular legend. The video recounts the collapse of a dam on the Mekong, which led to the deaths of many inhabitants of a remote rural village.
Exhibition view: Thao Nguyen Phan, Monsoon Melody, WIELS, Brussels (1 February–26 April 2020). Photo: Philippe De Gobert.
'After receiving the Han Nefkens Foundation Grant,' Nguyen Phan told me, 'I had the chance to work with other organisations, such as the In Between Art Film Foundation, who are also incredibly supportive. However, the Han Nefkens Foundation always has a special place in my heart because their support does not end with the grant: it has been continuous and substantial in various ways. Working with the Foundation is like having an extended family. On a personal level, I also enjoy reading Han's blog, Letters to an Imaginary Friend, where he shares his layered, complex thoughts. His openness and his gracefully crafted sentences induce a sense of comfort and closeness despite our physical distance.'
Writing, as Nguyen Phan indicates, is Nefkens' other great passion. He published his first book, Ties that Bind, in 1995. This was followed by a collection of essays, Two Empty Chairs. Aids: Closer Than You Think (2005), and three further titles, Borrowed Time: Notes on a Recovered Life (2008), The H+F Collection Ten Years On. The Making Of (2010), and Letters to an Imaginary Friend (2022), which contains a selection of the texts posted on his literary blog.
From left to right: Sojung Jun (artist), Nguyễn Trinh Thi (artist), Han Nefkens (Founder Han Nefkens Foundation), Noor Abed (artist), Hilde Teerlinck (Director Han Nefkens Foundation), Eugene Tan (CEO Singapore Art Museum). Opening Nguyễn Trinh Thi's exhibition 47 Days, Sound-less at Singapore Art Museum (12 January – 14 April 2024). Photo courtesy Han Nefkens Foundation.
The Foundation's forthcoming publication, which celebrates 25 years of engagement in the field of art, further highlights the organisation's willingness to explore new forms of collaboration. The book will feature texts by 25 international writers and poets, each of whom responds to a video produced by the Foundation. That some writers were previously unfamiliar with the artists they wrote about and simply watched the videos online serves as another example of the Foundation's distinct approach in constantly seeking new ways to foster engagement with video art.
Han Nefkens, 2024. Photo: Robert Ruiz.
'Bringing people together through art and literature is my life's work. With this book, I've combined these two passions in the hope that the reader will share some of the joy that has made me feel fully part of the world,' Nefkens said, revealing the generosity of spirit that truly makes him stand out from other patrons.
'It gives me great pleasure to have created a connection between these writers and our artists,' he continued, 'even if they might never meet in person—just as they rarely meet their own publics. I am aware that works of video art, like literature and poetry, require their audiences to devote far more attention to them than the 15 seconds they might spend looking at an Instagram reel. We give these artists the most precious thing we have: our time.' —[O]