Han Nefkens started to collect art in 2000. The H+F Collection, named after himself and his partner Felipe, is in long-term loan to various museums in The Netherlands and abroad. Nowadays Han Nefkens is not only active as a collector but also as an initiator of international art projects, often in collaboration with museums and other art institutions.
The Han Nefkens Foundation is a private non-profit organisation that was set up in Barcelona in 2009 with the aim of promoting the production of contemporary artworks. The mission is to stimulate artistic creation in Barcelona by offering international artists an opportunity to create artworks and interventions in the city, and to promote other fields of contemporary creation.
According to Han Nefkens, sharing is the antidote to loneliness, and he does so through his artistic and anti-AIDS projects and his writing. In 1995, he made his debut with the autobiographical novel Bloedverwanten (“Parents”), which was followed by Twee lege stoelen (“Two empty chairs”, 2006) and De gevlogen vogel (“The bird flew”, 2008). Nefkens also writes short pieces, “vignettes”.
CHRISTODOULOS PANAYIOTOU
Christodoulos Panayiotou was born in 1978 in Limassol, Cyprus, and currently lives in Berlin.
Originally trained in performing arts and dance in Lyon and London, Christodoulos Panayiotou creates works that are performance-based and collectively span every level of what could be described as the spectrum of the performative in art – from creating a space for an activity such as dancing, to directing actors and events, and the recording and tracing of the ‘performances’ of both artists and society. Trained in a range of media, Panayiotou often incorporates video and sound into an installation format. His aesthetic interventions frequently reference political stimuli and yet can be read in a multitude of different ways.
In 2005 Panayiotou won the DESTE Prize from the DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Arts in Athens and in 2011 he received the Future of Europe Prize from the Museum of Contemporary Art in Leipzig. Selected solo and group shows include the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 2006; the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, 2007; Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul, 2006; MoCA Miami, 2009; Artists Space, New York, 2009; Witte de With, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 2009 and 2010; Kunsthalle Zurich, 2010; Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, 2010; Cubitt, London, 2010; Parasol Unit Foundation, London, 2011, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Leipzig, 2011.