This winter, the Cobra Museum of Modern Art is presenting work by Guido van der Werve, winner of the Cobra Art Prize 2021. The jury of the Cobra Art Prize Amstelveen 2021, consisting of Sjarel Ex, Roos Gortzak and Melchior Jaspers, unanimously decided to honour this visual artist. Van der Werve receives a monetary award of €15,000 and has been invited to present a selection of existing work in the Cobra Museum. This presentation is on show in the Cobra Museum from 4 December 2021 to 3 March 2022.
Experiment, interdisciplinarity and radicalism are central to the works of Guido van der Werve. These are core values that he shares with the artists of the Cobra movement. In his work, Van der Werve always deliberately sought exhaustion, testing the limits of his perseverance and endurance. In 2016, he was seriously injured in a traffic accident. At 39, he had to rediscover himself: an exhausting process that required all his strength to get back on his feet. Van der Werve is currently making new work about this process. The jury feels that Guido van der Werve more than deserves the Cobra Art Prize 2021 for a mid-career artist.
