Job Koelewijn
Illustration — No Matter. Fail Better, sculpture in Rotterdam. Jacob Rutger (Job) Koelewijn (born Spakenburg, February 15, 1962) is a Dutch artist, who works as conceptual artist, sculptor, installation artist, performance artist, and photographer.
Job Koelewijn

Wikifrits · Public domain
- Born
- 1962 · Spakenburg.
- Nationality
- Kingdom of the Netherlands
- Occupation
- photographer · filmmaker · conceptual artist · performance artist · installation artist
- Education
- Gerrit Rietveld Academie
- Honours
- Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Art
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Illustration — No Matter. Fail Better, sculpture in Rotterdam. Jacob Rutger (Job) Koelewijn (born Spakenburg, February 15, 1962) is a Dutch artist, who works as conceptual artist, sculptor, installation artist, performance artist, and photographer.
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wikidata · Q2864602 · wikipedia · Job Koelewijn
In this article
Life and work
Life and work
Job Koelewijn studied at Gerrit Rietveld Academie. Places of work recorded in the authority are Amsterdam and New York City. Work by Job Koelewijn is recorded in the collections of De Pont, Museum Arnhem, Van Abbemuseum, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Centraal Museum. Distinctions recorded are Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Art.
Koelewijn decided to become an artist in 1984 after he had been seriously injured in a traffic accident. The subsequent years became a quest for deepening of live. He studied at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam from 1987 to 1992, and then spent a year at the Sandberg Institute. In his graduation project, he let his family dressed in Spakenburg costume clean the exhibition pavilion by Gerrit Rietveld. In 1987 he settled in Amsterdam as independent artist. In 1996 he worked a period in the MoMA PS1 in New York, a center for contemporary art, which is attached to the Museum of Modern Art. He then returned to Amsterdam. Koelewijn was awarded the Charlotte Köhler Prize in 1996, the Sandberg Prize of the Amsterdam Arts Fund in 1999, the Westinghouse Art Prize in 2002, and the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Art in 2006.
Work
Work
Koelewijn his work consists of installations, photographs, objects and multiples. Many of his works appeal to several senses. For example, he makes use of baby powder, inhalation ointment, ice or cubes to express himself. He made a tombstone of baby powder with the inscription "Vitality," entitled "Marsman... goodbye," and a room that he occupied entirely in poetry wrapped cubes. In 1996 Koelewijn had an exhibition called "Two openings" in the Fons Welters gallery in Amsterdam. For the artwork "The world is my oyster," he cut in a wall of the gallery a hole the size of a football, in which the viewer could watch into the neighbors garden of the gallery. In spring 2008 there was a retrospective of Koelewijn work at the De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art in Tilburg, entitled Loco Motion. The installation shown are linked to time without mercy and books, as carriers of knowledge, are uses as energy. The exhibition already starts at the square in front of the museum, where the artist confronts the audience with a mobile cinema but without the famous white cloth. Under music of Ennio Morricone you just look at a square and lined sac.
Identity
Identity
Job Koelewijn is recorded as having received Dr A.H. The identifiers under which Job Koelewijn may be traced in institutional catalogues. Koelewijn received Dr A.H.

By Job Koelewijn (Amsterdam 1962) Deze tekst wordt van onderuit op het wateroppervlak geprojecteerd. Ik vermoed met buizen met gaatjes waardoor het water naar boven borrelt. Op de foto hierboven zie je de laatste 2 woorden (Fail Better).
FaceMePLS
Kunstwerk De Cascade van Job Koelewijn op de Vischmarkt in Harderwijk. 2012 epoxy. Meer informatie: https: harderwijk.kunstwacht.nl/kunstwerken/bekijk/8093-de-cascade
Marion Golsteijn
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 1 entries
1962
Job Koelewijn born at Spakenburg.
Primary material
Documents and archives
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q2864602: Job Koelewijn
General reference · Wikidata
reference work
- “Job Koelewijn”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
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Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 18 August 2026.
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