Ivan Cheng has been chosen as the winner of The Mondrian Prize 2025. The prize consists of a nine-month residency at The Mondrian Initiative in Laren. During the year, Cheng will engage the local community and a range of international makers in his community-performance project ‘Deposition / L’éphémère est éternel’.
‘Ivan Cheng’s work and his interaction with the surrounding community are important indicators of how The Mondrian Initiative functions. This residency year – however Ivan interprets it – will be an artistic experience for himself, and thanks to the nature of his project, also for the local community.’
Selection Committee, The Mondrian Initiative
‘Deposition / L’éphémère est éternel’
Starting point for Ivan Cheng’s project are three maquettes Piet Mondrian made in 1926 for his friend Michel Seuphor’s play ‘L’éphémère est éternel’. The models are lost, but were photographed in Mondrian’s studio by André Kertész in 1926. These models, supplemented by the thoughts of influential writer Gertrude Stein, Cheng takes as inspiration to reflect on the eternal and abstract aspects of language together with international makers and the local community. The project will result in two performances, which will take place in summer and autumn 2025.
About Ivan Cheng
Ivan Cheng (b. 1991, Sydney) works with genres, languages, and their readings. Interested in the ambient and implicit, his performance work incorporates the site of presentation into a system for formatting text and historic references, often using the video camera as a structuring device. The process of making the work is related to accumulation and caching of information – memory between performance terms and machinic terms. His practice is variously represented by video, installation and publications.
The Mondrian Initiative
On the border between Laren and Blaricum is a colony of several renovated historic artists’ studios, including the studio of Piet Mondrian (1872-1942). His success is largely linked to world cities such as Paris and New York, where he lived for much of his life. Less well known is that Mondrian stayed in the Gooi region during the years 1916-1918, a period that proved crucial for his development towards radical abstraction. With like-minded revolutionary artist Bart van der Leck, Mondrian founds art movement De Stijl in 1917. They thus give the go-ahead for a new way of thinking and living. Art, architecture, design and everyday life merge to create the ideal breeding ground for the birth of modern man. By once again bringing innovative and influential thinkers to Laren, The Mondrian Initiative aims to revive the revolutionary spirit of the first decades of the twentieth century.
The Mondrian Prize
The Mondrian Prize is the residency awarded annually by The Mondrian Initiative to an internationally recognised art professional. The winner is invited to undertake a research project at the Dooyewaard Foundation’s historic artists’ colony, in collaboration with peers of their choice. In 2023, The Mondrian Prize was awarded to visual artist Sophia Al-Maria and in 2024 to philosopher Emanuele Coccia. Ivan Cheng is the winner of The Mondrian Prize 2025.
View of the historic artist studio’s, with in the front Piet Mondrian’s studio.