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Upon entry to the exhibition space in Rotterdam’s Kunsthal one is greeted with a comprehensive timeline depicting this transformation, chronologically, with a list of all those who have claimed fame and fortune.

Dating back to when the prestigious art prize was first introduced in 1808, during the French occupation of the Netherlands, the prize has since undergone an expansion of categories, branching out from it’s original four (painting, sculpture, graphic design, architecture) since 1984 to encompass film, photography, theatre and performance.

It’s not so surprising to think that it was once common practice for an artist to be subjected to an assessment of competence as a testament to their artistic agility.

Finalists of the Prize were imprisoned for weeks during examinations, fed meals through a door, completely isolated to retain anonymity. How fitting that this tradition seems carried on from its ancient Roman ancestors; celebrators of some of the greatest global contests in sweat shed heroic gestures in art and athleticism.

Now all has changed. The Dutch art system is notorious for its generosity towards international artistic opportunists, making cities like Amsterdam such alluring destinations to inhabit. Many of the foreign artists (namely, Alicia Framis, Ryan Gander, Mariana Castillo Deball and Agata Zwierzynska) who were awarded the prize were also incidentally past students or residents at art institutions such as De Ateliers, Jan Van Eyck Academie, and of course the Rijksacademie – the prime prize co-ordinators since 1870.

As a prize winner’s retrospective (a prize that once saw the glory of a funded residency in Rome itself), the exhibition successfully manages to categorically display work according to the various disciplines as well as exposing the transition from it’s extremely laborious standard of art production in the nineteenth century to the more concept-based art of the past century.