During the launch ceremony, Ling Min, board member of the International Awards for Art Criticism (IAAC) Organising Committee reflected: ‘Over the past 12 years, IAAC has received more than 2,000 submissions in Chinese and English, covering over 70 countries worldwide. These international awards not only provide an important platform for writers to critique contemporary art exhibitions, but more significantly, they document our time through these exhibitions. Whilst exhibitions come and go, criticism endures — IAAC itself has become a repository for artistic and cultural phenomena. As it enters its 12th year, IAAC is about to turn a new page. Firstly, the Shanghai Zhangyuan Art Museum has joined as a co-organiser. Secondly, IAAC will collaborate with e-flux, aiming to invite past jurors and winners to collaborate on multiple research projects."
Sun Xiangchen, Professor at the School of Philosophy at Fudan University, and Executive Dean of the Fudan Art Institute stated: ‘Contemporary art criticism is forging an unprecedentedly close connection with philosophy and technology. This trend coincides perfectly with the interdisciplinary spirit advocated by the School of Philosophy at Fudan University. The newly established Master of Philosophy, Art, and Humanistic Science & Technology (MAPS) degree programme precisely targets this core of contemporary art development. We believe that without understanding technology, one cannot touch upon the authentic existential conditions of contemporary life; without employing philosophical critique, art criticism risks becoming a mere appendage to technology. IAAC is a vivid reflection of this spirit, encouraging critics to maintain unique human reflection amidst the rapid surge of technology."
Representing the Shanghai Zhangyuan Art Museum (in preparation), the team from Shanghai Xinyi Jing'an Cultural Development Co., Ltd. — which has joined as a co-organiser of the International Awards for Art Criticism in 2026 — stated: ‘Since the establishment of Jinghua Cultural Development Group 25 years ago, investing in cultural undertakings has always been at the core of our development strategy. We are deeply aware that true cultural responsibility extends beyond the market operation of industries, it lies in the long-term nurturing of academic value. As one of Shanghai's most historically profound and culturally vibrant landmarks, the soon-to-be-established Zhangyuan Art Museum has, since its inception, anchored its core positioning as a 'global cultural connector and international art dialogue hub', it is dedicated to building a research-oriented art museum in China that faces the world. The collaboration between the Zhangyuan Art Museum and IAAC will serve as a starting point to further integration with international institutions, creating a contemporary art research platform with global influence.’
Concurrent with the IAAC 12 launch, the ‘Artificial Intelligence and Writing/ Change of Art’ workshop was held at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. The workshop investigated the practical impacts exerted by AI technology on writing and art through a questioning perspective, creative inspiration and theoretical discussion. As a co-organiser of the event, Jiao Xingtao, Dean of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute stated: ‘IAAC upholds extremely high academic standards and an independent spirit, breaking down the barriers of language and geography to let the world hear the voice of Chinese contemporary art criticism. Nowadays, facing the comprehensive impact of AI technology on fields such as art education, art practice and theoretical research, the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute continues to promote innovation in education and teaching, focuses on the integration of technology and the humanities, embraces change, and anchors its core mission on building a leading nation in education. Meanwhile, the school aims to allow art to step into the lively streets of the Chongqing city, becoming a cultural feast shared by citizens.’
The IAAC 12 international jury comprises five members:
Fiona Bradley, Director, Fruitmarket, Edinburgh.
Ben Eastham, art critic and novelist based in London. He is the editor-in-chief of e-flux Criticism.
Richard J. Williams, Professor of Contemporary Visual Cultures at the University of Edinburgh.
WANG Pu, Associate Professor of Chinese Literature and Culture and Chair of the Department of German, Russian and Asian Languages and Literature, Brandeis University.
XIANG Zairong, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of Arts at Duke Kunshan University
Submissions must review contemporary art exhibitions held globally or online between 1 September 2025 and 11 August 2026. Entries must be unpublished, with a 2,500-word limit for Chinese and 1,500 words for English. The deadline is 14 September (24:00 UK time) 2026. Applicants must register on the IAAC website (www.iaac-m21.com) and submit their work online.
The jury will select around 20 anonymised shortlisted entries (10 in Chinese, 10 in English). Prizes include:
First Prize: 80,000 RMB (around 10,000 Euro pre-tax) plus a short residency in Shanghai or London
Second Prizes:3 Winners, 30,000 RMB (around 3,500 Euro pre-tax) each
The shortlisted works will be published bilingually in the 12th IAAC Annual Exhibition Reviews in summer 2027.
Introduction To Jury Members for IAAC 12 (2026)
Fiona Bradley
Fiona Bradley is the Director of Fruitmarket, Edinburgh. Motivated by a commitment to the transformative power of art, and to what bringing artists and audiences together can do, she started her curatorial career at Tate Liverpool and the Hayward Gallery, London, and has been Director of Fruitmarket since 2003. Her programme at Fruitmarket has included exhibitions of work by major Scottish and international artists including Leonor Antunes, Phyllida Barlow, Karla Black, Louise Bourgeois, Martin Boyce, Stan Douglas, Ellen Gallagher, Eva Hesse, William Kentridge, Jim Lambie, Lee Lozano, Ibrahim Mahama, Howardena Pindell, Cai Guo Qiang, Roman Signer and Barry Le Va. She has worked in the public realm, bringing art to audiences where they are with Martin Creed's Work 1059, a work of permanent public sculpture on Edinburgh's historic Scotsman Steps, and Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller’s Night Walk for Edinburgh, an interactive, site-specific video work for smartphone.
Fiona is a trustee of Yorkshire Contemporary. She was a member of the jury for important awards and prizes such as Turner Prize, Paul Hamlyn Award, Woon Foundation Painting and Sculpture Art Prize, Max Mara Art Prize for Women and Kleinwort Hambros Emerging Artist Prize. In 2011 she was the curator for Scotland’s contribution to the Venice Biennale with Karla Black; and in 2019 was a member of the Selection Committee for the British Pavilion. She was a member of the Imperial War Museum Contemporary Commissioning Committee between 2015 and 2024. She was awarded an OBE for services to the arts in 2018 and is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Edinburgh and an Honorary Professor in the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester.
Ben Eastham
Ben Eastham is a writer and editor based in London. He
is editor-in-chief of e-flux Criticism and co-founder of The White
Review. His second book of non-fiction, The Imaginary Museum, was
published in September 2020; his debut novel, The Floating World, will
be published by Fitzcarraldo Editions (Commonwealth) and Astra House (in the
US) in October 2026.
A regular contributor to the Guardian, his writing has also appeared in ArtReview, e-flux, frieze, the London Review of Books, the New
York Times, the Times Literary Supplement, Fantastic Man, Acne Paper and the Financial Times, among other publications. He is
the editor of books on Luis Camnitzer, Arshile Gorky, Fabio Mauri and Stephen
Spender, and has written monographic essays for artists including Ed Ruscha,
Camille Henrot, Kati Heck and Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian.
He was previously an editor at ArtReview, on the curatorial team of the
14th Shanghai Biennale,
publications editor of the 13th Seoul Mediacity Biennale, and an associate
editor at documenta 14. He is on the International Advisory Panel of EVA
International – Ireland’s Biennial of Contemporary Art, and began his career as
an editor at the BBC reporting on mass media and propaganda.
Richard J. Williams
Richard J. Williams is Professor of Contemporary Visual Cultures at the University of Edinburgh and Director of Internationalism at Edinburgh College of Art. He started off with a BA Hons in Art (Studio Practice) at Goldsmiths College, University of London, before going on to take an MA and PhD in the History of Art at Manchester University. He first taught Ary and Design History at Liverpool John Moores University, before moving to the University of Edinburgh in 2000. Since 2010 he has been Professor of Contemporary Visual Cultures in Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh. His numerous publications include: After Modern Sculpture: Art in the United States and Europe, 1965-70 (2000); Brazil: Modern Architecture and the Sexual Revolution(2013); The Culture Factory: Architecture and the Contemporary Art Museum (2021), The Expressway World (2025) and (forthcoming) Infrastructure In Image: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (co-ed) (2027).
WANG Pu
WANG Pu, teacher, poet, critic, scholar and translator, is associate professor of Chinese at Brandeis University, visiting professor at Chongqing University, researcher at the China Academy of Art (Hangzhou), and research fellow at Tsientang Institute of Advanced Studies. He studied at Peking University from 1999 to 2006 and received his PhD in Comparative Literature at New York University in 2012. Dr. Wang was a Fellow at the Nantes Institute of Advanced Studies in 2020. His works include The Translatability of Revolution: Guo Moruo and Twentieth-Century Chinese Culture (Harvard University Asia Center, 2018) and Ditu zai dong (a collection of poetic criticism in Chinese; Shanghai, 2025). Dr Wang is a poet writing in Chinese. His first book of poetry, Baota ji qita (2015), received high acclaim. He is also the award-winning Chinese translator of Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life.
XIANG Zairong
Zairong XIANG’s research, teaching, and curatorial practices engage with cosmology and cosmopolitanism in their culturally diverse, historically specific, and conceptually promiscuous manifestations in English, Spanish, French, Chinese, and Nahuatl. He teaches literature and art at Duke Kunshan University, and was co-curator of the 2021 Guangzhou Image Triennial, Ceremony (Burial of an Undead World) at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), and the 14th Shanghai Biennial Cosmos Cinema (2023-2024). He has curated the minor cosmopolitan weekend (HKW Berlin, 2018) and the exhibition How to be Happy Together? at Para-Site Hong Kong (Dec. 2024). He is currently co-curating (with Denise Ryner) a research and exhibition project at ICA Philadelphia (2026). Author of Queer Ancient Way: A Decolonial Exploration (punctum books), he is the editor of exhibition catalogues, journal special issues, and a film archive. He is currently completing his second book on “transdualism.” Through the concept of “shanzhai/counterfeit,” he continues multifaceted research into the artistic and intellectual exchanges in the Global South, especially between Latin America and China since the nineteenth century. Once a research fellow at the ICI-Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry and a postdoctoral fellow of the DFG Research Training Group minor cosmopolitanisms at Potsdam University, he was twice the recipients of the EU Erasmus Mundus scholarship for his cotutelle PhD and MA. All his writings and lectures can be accessed at : www.xiangzairong.com
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Submission:
Applicants must register on the IAAC website and submit their work online:
Deadline: 14 September 2026 (24:00 UK Time)
Enquiries should be addressed, as follows:
Chinese-language: School of Philosophy, Fudan University
Address: 220 Handan Road, Shanghai (Fudan Art Museum)
Tel: +86 21 6564 5853
Email: philo.fudan@gmail.com
English-language: School of Art and Humanities, Royal College of Art
Address: 20 Howie Street, SW11 4AY
Email: iaac@rca.ac.uk