The C.o.C.A. Foundation Art Prize is an award and a grant for young artists living in the Netherlands. For the sixth edition of the award, A Tale of a Tub presents the starting point for a new series of works by artist Paul Geelen (Weert, 1983) in collaboration with C.o.C.A. during Art Rotterdam. Within his artistic practice, Paul Geelen examines the similarities and possible cross-pollination between science, chemistry and art, often in the form of process-based and sculptural installations. As part of the grant Paul Geelen traveled to Chile to collect materials there to investigate the origins of the rejuvenating effects of snail slime. He associates this process with a study of the oldest preserved mummies in the world. Geelen combines these two areas of research and translates them on the basis of his artistic practice into a series of artistic proposals regarding the possibilities of a new life elixir.

About the artist

Paul Geelen was born in 1983 in Weert (NL). From 2004 to 2008 he studied at the AKV | St. Joost in Breda. In 2014 he completed his two-year residency at de Ateliers in Amsterdam. Recent exhibitions include Survival Blur – Grey Light Projects, Brussels (2015), Percussive Hunter – Akbank Sanat, Istanbul (2015), Axis Mundi (Art as a healing tool) – Moinsun, Paris (2015), The Hidden Picture – Cobra Museum Amstelveen (2014), Offspring – de Ateliers, Amsterdam (2014) and Æon Flux at P ///// AKT, Amsterdam (2014). Geelen lives and works in Amsterdam.

About C.o.C.A.

Since government funding for the visual arts has been continuously diminishing for a number of years, a group of eight collectors came together and initiated the foundation Collectors of Contemporary Art (C.o.C.A.). The foundation awards a grant to a young, promising artist on an annual basis.

This exhibition is kindly supported by the Pauwhof Fund and the municipality of Rotterdam.