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”.
SpainWorld AIDS day: Dialogic Visits
Celebrate with us the World Aids Day
Monday, December 1st, 2014
Doors Open Day from 11 to 20h
With Guided Tours
One of the aims of the exhibition is to show that AIDS remains a crucial issue in today’s society. A third of HIV carriers do not know they are infected and can unknowingly pass on the virus, but people are reluctant to get tested for fear of social exclusion. In order to continue the fight against this stigma, ArtAids has commissioned the artists Willem De Rooij, Eulàlia Valldosera, and Keren Cytter to produce new works that deal with the subject of HIV, thus creating a bridge between the pieces dating from the early 1980s and 1990s and the struggle today.
Acclaimed artists such as Derek Jarman, Pepe Espaliú, Peter Hujar, Robert Gober, General Idea, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Robert Mapplethorpe and Nan Goldin contribute works in the form of photographs, sculptures, video and other media, offering personal perspectives that inevitably spark connections and responses to the issue of HIV.