Jury Report Janneke Viegers

At first glance, Janneke Viegers’ paintings seem like abstracts: large square canvases with paint that drips or circles back on itself, with clashing colours in earthy or cool tones. But then concrete objects become visible: houses, statues, streets lined with cars, a cluster of aeroplanes. Having a bird’s-eye view – although nowadays we might say ‘drone view’ – offers a completely different picture of the city from the ground-level perspective of most urban illustrators and painters. Janneke Viegers does not paint her cityscapes clearly and meticulously, as 16th century painter and cartographer Cornelis Anthonisz depicted medieval Amsterdam in bird’s-eye view. Her urban landscapes depict the chaos of the city, in which rivers, roads and buildings merge into each other. Sometimes you look at it and wonder, is everything okay down there?

There is often something dark about her work. Or there is a sense of doom and drama, as in the painting of the deserted Dam Square in the corona period. Viegers’ paintings are more an analysis of the city’s state of mind than a topographical representation, and yet we still recognise Amsterdam in this mix of abstraction and figuration. Her paintings invite us to look longer, to try and figure out where we are in the city. They are full of manmade objects: buildings, streets, statues, and airports. Even the River Amstel has been turned into a canal. But the city’s inhabitants themselves are missing.

At a time when Google Maps and Google Earth lets us zoom into every detail, Janneke Viegers brings mystery to our image of the city. Take a look: not everything is always visible. And yet, as the artist herself puts it, the bird’s-eye view offers a sense of context: ‘the city is yours’. Janneke Viegers chose the entire city as her subject – including the old city centre, but also the area around the Rembrandt Tower and Schiphol. From the 1980s onwards, she has built up an impressive oeuvre, painting with her fingers in plastic gloves.

For the third edition of the Tim Killiam Prize, the jury selected an artist whose depictions of her city are highly idiosyncratic and consistent, and which therefore invite us to look at our city of Amsterdam through different eyes. But also, to look at the city as a biotope.

 The jury for the Tim Killiam Prize 2025:

• Annemarie de Wildt: Historian and curator (until 2024 at Amsterdam Museum)
• Indira van ’t Klooster: Director, Arcam
• Hans Aarsman: Photo detective
• Edwin Becker: Head of Exhibitions, Van Gogh Museum
•  Martijn Bosch: Director, Grachtenmuseum Amsterdam

illustration: Janneke Viegers, Amsterdam Central Station, oil on canvas, 2019, 2 x 2 m.