Copyright notice: The article is reproduced from Phoenix Art
As a globally oriented international art criticism award, the International Awards for Art Criticism (IAAC) aims to promote more independent and objective writing on art criticism. The IAAC2 is open to candidates for independent criticism about any contemporary art exhibition held between September 20, 2014 and September 20, 2015. The final date for submission is October 15, 2015.
Phoenix Art conducts an exclusive interview with Henry Meyric Hughes, Honorary Chairman of International Association of Art Criticism (AICA) and Board Chairman of IAAC, who answers questions that the public concerns and expects to let more people know about the establishment and development of the award.
P – Phoenix Art
H - Henry Meyric Hughes, independent curator, art consultant and critic as well as General Coordinator of Council of Europe Exhibitions and Honorary President of the International Association of Art Critcics (AICA), Paris. Besides, he is one of the initiators of European Contemporary Art Biennale 2003 and Chairman of Netherlands Manifesta Fund from 1996 to 2007.
P: Why did you set up the International Awards for Art Criticism (IAAC)?
H: The small group of us in China and the UK, who were involved in setting up the Awards, were concerned about the death of good critical writing that addresses the works of artists at a formative stage in their development, and at the lack of awareness of critical issues of display and promotion. We felt there is a need to encourage authors to write intelligently for the public, in a way that goes beyond the relatively narrow scope of specialist magazines. The same thing might be said of the Chinese situation, where the artistic canon is still being formed , and of the West, where it has increasingly been called into question. By implication, it also applies to the global art scene, with the dissolution of any lingering belief in artistic autarchy or the validity of national "schools".
The first IAAC, held in 2014, was already open to competitors writing in Chinese or English from any part of the world, though the publicity was focused on the UK and mainland China. It also called for a critical response to the biennial editions of the long-established John Moores Painting Prize in Britain (established, 1957) and China (established, 2010). The second IAAC, held in 2015, marks a bold step forward, in throwing the competition open to critics writing about any exhibition of contemporary art, to have been held anywhere in the world, over the past twelve months. The length of entries has been pinned down to 1,500 words or 2,000 characters, and the jury has been fully internationalised. One of the small, but significant implications of this is that competitors can no longer reckon with the fact that jury members will have visited the exhibition they are describing, so we have introduced the option of including up to three illustrations, to clarify specific points in the text, though the emphasis remains firmly placed on some form of textual exegesis.
P: Why did you consider museums in China as the core collaborators?
H: The Board of the IAAC is fully independent, but needs a solid funding and administrative basis for its primarily educational objectives. Hence, our dependence on the resources of a new museum in Shanghai and Britain’s leading institute for postgraduate studies in the visual arts, and our determination to build a training element into our activities, in promoting the Awards and organising a series of related activities, including debates, seminars, public presentations and publications in different media.
P: How do you choose the juries? Looking at the evidence from the submissions to the first IAAC, it seems you received more articles from China than from any other countries. Why do international critics dominate the jury?
H: This is an international competition, with a Chinese-British funding and administrations, and it addresses a widely shared concern to improve the quality of critical writing and debate, everywhere that contemporary visual art has an enthusiastic following. Therefore, we have been anxious to recruit top flight international jury members, who are thoroughly familiar with current artistic and critical practice, and whose background reflects the broad spread of critical competence between writers, academics, curators, and artists themselves. All members of the jury have been hand-picked by the IAAC Board, for their professional competence and critical awareness. They are all experienced writers and have also engaged in a variety of curatorial, educational and research-based activities. This is merely a reflection of the fact that geographical and political borders no longer play a determining role, in shaping the global dialogue about art and artistic values. And that dialogue about common concerns is increasingly conducted in only a handful of major international languages, of which Chinese and English happen to be two.
P: What are the criteria employed for the IAAC?
H: The overall criteria are set by the Board. They include detachment, independence, criticality, originality, writing skills and the ability to examine an exhibition, as a whole, in its institutional, social and economic context. They also encompass the author’s ability to engage the attention of an audience and to encourage it to engage with the artist’s intentions on a variety of levels. Individual jury members will always respond to these criteria in their own way, and the process of attributing awards and shortlisting submissions for wider publication and distribution makes for some lively discussion!
P: What is the situation of international art criticism?
H: Only a polemical essay could do justice to this theme and its economic, social and political ramifications. However, it would be difficult to argue with the assessment of the North American critic and art theorist, James Elkins, that art criticism is at present extensively consumed and widely ignored. The IAAC aim to set up new standards of expectation and achievement. They are among the very few international awards of their kind and play an active part, in putting successful candidates in touch with a new readership.
P: How do you see the significance of the international awards for art criticism in China?
H: The main value of the Awards will have to be assessed in relation to their long-term relevance to artistic expression and dialogue. I hope they will be as fearless in addressing the past as in defending the values of contemporary creation, that they will support diversity of expression, and that they will be able to transgress the barriers to international dialogue and communication. They might even serve to attenuate some of the excesses of an overheated market, by encouraging people to engage with artistic processes, rather than speculate for financial gain.
The question about the significance of the IAAC for Chinese art criticism is a difficult one to answer, if it is not to be reformulated, in relation either to "art criticism in China" or "art criticism in the Chinese language". The aim of the Awards is to encourage a two-way or multi-directional dialogue, though writers in the Chinese language cannot afford to ignore the particularities of their own culture in relation to the cultures of other peoples and societies. Few representatives of an older generation of critics based in China had the opportunity to travel or to study another language; thus, many were cut off for too long from the impact of fresh ideas and ways of thinking, but the successor generations will inevitably profit from China’s opening up to the outside world, thanks to the economic reforms of the last two and a half decades. They will also have unprecedented opportunities for making the works of Chinese contemporary artists and representatives of contemporary Chinese thought known to a far wider, and more diverse, public. We may also hope that one of the incidental effects of the Awards will be to raise the game for the artists, who are having to cope either with uncritical success or, more commonly, critical neglect.
P: How do you see the IAAC in the long term? And what expectation do you have for the IAAC?
H: We’re all in this for the long term, because the Awards are as much about creating a climate of opinion as achieving measurable results. Hence, the importance we attach to publications and debate. The Awards aim to be critically responsive to the changing perceptions of artists and audiences alike, and may be expected to play a part in shaping these, too. I envisage that they will develop into a standard point of reference for aspiring young writers about the art of our time, and I hope, above all, that they will develop into a by-word for critical integrity and independence.