In 2020, an international jury chose the three finalists from 112 portfolios submitted. However, due to the pandemic, the exhibition and award ceremony were postponed for a year.
During this long period, the artists had the opportunity to get to know their different artistic practices and each other better so that they could "bond both personally and professionally and discover common concerns that they found relevant to contemporary times, such as migration, territory, colonization, human relations and consumption."The connectedness, they said, made it difficult to see the exhibition as a competition. They therefore considered "empathy, solidarity and the sharing of knowledge and resources within the community of young artists" as a logical response to the difficulties that have hit the arts field over the past year and a half but also as a strength for facing an uncertain future.
The Friends of S.M.A.K. Prize is a national, biennial competition for artists who recently graduated from a Belgian college of visual arts. With this biennial prize, S.M.A.K. and its association of friends, the Friends of S.M.A.K., want to underline the importance and relevance of the new generation of artists.
The award includes 5.000 euro cash and a solo exhibition in the premises of the Friends of S.M.A.K.
The jury of the Prize of the Friends 2020 - 2021:
- Philippe Leeman, president of the Friends of S.M.A.K.
- Sébastien Delot, director-curator, Musée LaM, Lille
- Anne Wetsi Mpoma, curator and founder of Nouveau Système Artistique, Brussels
- Eva Wittocx, curator and head of department for contemporary art, M-Leuven
- Lilou Vidal, curator and founder of Bureau des Réalités, Brussels-Turin
- Adriënne van der Werf and Jef Declercq, members of the Young Friends of S.M.A.K.
- Philippe Van Cauteren, artistic director of S.M.A.K.
- Ann Hoste, curator of S.M.A.K.
1.Oct.21
