On November 24, 2014, the 1st International Awards for Art Criticism (IAAC) was released in Shanghai 21st Century Minsheng Art Museum (M21) . The first prize went to Su Wei from China and second prizes went to Joobin Bekhrad from Canada and Zhang Hanlu from China. The Awards are hosted by IAAC organizing committee, organized by M21, in partnership with the Royal College of Art (RCA), London and International Association of Art Criticism (AICA), UK. The principal sponsor is the China Minsheng Banking Corporation Ltd (CMBC).
The first prize winner will get a cash award of RMB50,000 and two-week exchange in London, Britain in spring, 2015 and the second prize winners each will be sponsored with return flight tickets for their two-week exchange in London, Britain in spring , 2015.
In current China, creation in the art field is quite active and the art market dealing is vey hot. However, there is few professional and highly qualified art critical writings. Therefore, the 1st IAAC selects independent criticism about any contemporary art exhibition held between September 30 2013 and September 30 2014 since September 2014.
By the end of the submission deadline, 316 papers have been received. The recognized professionalism of the Chinese and English-speaking jury members are consisted of J.J. Charlesworth (Associate Editor of Art Review in UK), Richard Vine (Editor of Art in America), Rachel Withers (Writer of Artforum International), Karen Smith (art historian and Executive Director of OCAT Xi’an), Lu Yinghua (curator, art critic and writer) and Yi Ying (Professor of CAFA). Together the jury members will be gathered to review the anonymous papers during the judging process.
The awards are open to candidates of any age from anywhere in the world for art criticism. After preliminary assessment of those over 300 Chinese and English entries, 30 entrants including prize winners enter the final list. Entries of the winners will be published in both English and Chinese at IAAC publications and its official website www.iaac-m21.org. All the winners will be invited to make public speeches, panel discussions and prize-awarding ceremony.
In order to deepen the research on the situation of current art criticism, apart from announcing the prize winning information of 2014 at M21, the IAAC organizing committee will also invite committee members such as Henry Meyric Hughes (Honorary President of International Association of Art Criticism), Prof. Juan Cruz (President of RCA) and Prof. Lewis Biggs (independent curator), together with the international jury members including Richard Vine, Rachel Withers, Karen Smith and Lu Yinghua to hold a forum themed as "The Conditions of Art Critics", expecting to open a new independent and open field for art criticism in China.
The 1st IAAC has obtained more than expected. According to statistics from Britain, English entries mainly come from over 40 countries and regions such as Britain, America, Ukraine, Philippine, Turkey, Uganda and Zambia. Candidates are mainly artists, curators, the professional of art education and research institutes, students from art academies and free-lance writers. And Chinese entries mainly come from Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou and others from 15 cities including Guangzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing and Shenzhen as well as overseas areas such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, America and Russia.
IAAC is organized by M21. As a new member of the Minsheng Art System (MSMS), M21 had already prepared the IAAC project before it was open to the public. Since November 21, the new museum has just been put into operation. The opening exhibition entitled "Cosmos" has already obtained wide attention. With the holding of the award ceremony of IAAC, M21 develops a new style of public art in China’s ascendant art museum construction and generating great interest within the industry in the depth and future development of Minsheng art organizations. Via planning cross-regional and inter-disciplinary special topics on art criticism, diversified publishing plans and display of significant art criticism literatures, the museum is looking forward to more attention from the international art academies and institutes as well as social public and mass medias on the new trend and achievements of the IAAC.