| Intro | Dutch writer and art collector |
| Is |
Art collector Writer |
| From | Netherlands |
| Type |
Arts Literature |
| Gender | male |
| Birth | 1 January 1954, Rotterdam, Rotterdam, South Holland, Netherlands |
| Age: | 66 years |
Han Nefkens (born 1954) is a Dutch writer and art collector. Nefkens purchases and commissions international contemporary art with the specific purpose to give it on long-term loan or donate it to museums.
Born in Rotterdam in 1954, Nefkens studied journalism in France and the United States. He worked as a radio correspondent in Mexico for eleven years. He discovered in 1987 he was HIV-positive.
In 2001 he started the H+F Collection of contemporary art, which consists of photographs, videos, installations and paintings by – among others – Jeff Wall, Sam Taylor-Wood, Bill Viola, Shirin Neshat and Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Nefkens places them on long-term loan to museums in the Netherlands and abroad, including the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, Rotterdam’s Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais in Dunkirk.
In 2006, Nefkens set up ArtAids, a foundation that uses art in order to increase awareness of HIV/AIDS and improve the lives of people living with HIV.
In addition to being a collector and patron of the arts, Nefkens is also a writer. His first book, Bloedverwanten (Blood Brothers; 1995), is a semi-autobiographical novel about two brothers who are both infected with the AIDS virus. This was followed by a collection of short pieces, Twee lege stoelen (Two Empty Chairs; 2005). The book De Gevlogen Vogel notities over een herwonnen leven (Borrowed Time: Notes on a Recovered Life), which was published in 2008 and has been translated into Spanish, is a report of the lengthy recovery process of Nefkens’ HIV induced encephalitis.
‘Giving is one of the most underrated values in society,’ Nefkens says. ‘By setting up something that I can share with others, I become part of the world. Sharing is the antidote to loneliness, when you share you are not alone.’