The Multitude Foundation and Wuhan Art Terminus (WH.A.T.) present the Multitude Art Prize in collaboration with the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA). Grounded in the concept of the “multitude,” in which the extraordinary (re)emerges from a social group undergoing a geopolitical change, the Multitude Art Prize examines the role of art and its relevance in different regions of Asia. The Multitude Foundation is a Hong Kong registered charitable trust founded to promote Asian contemporary art through international dialogue, and the Wuhan Art Terminus (WH.A.T.) is a contemporary art centre currently being developed in Wuhan that takes inspiration from the idea of the “terminus,” a place that both sends out and receives people and their ideas. UCCA is proud to host the inaugural Multitude Art Prize exhibition from April 28 – June 16, 2013 (opening April 27), as well as a special conference on April 28 placing the situation of contemporary Asian art within a global context. The exhibition, which will be held annually in a different Asian city, will feature five winning artists or artist groups representing the most creative, critical minds in a rising Asian contemporary art scene. In the accompanying programs, invited speakers, including leading Asian curators and scholars as well as Western museum directors involved in the institutional collaborative “L’Internationale,” will provide an eclectic, academic analysis of the present and future of contemporary art in Asia.

List of Prizewinners:

1. Yao Jui-chung, Taiwan

2. Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan, Philippines

3. MOON Kyungwon & JEON Joonho, Korea

4. Raqs Media Collective, India

5. Ha Za Vu Zu, Turkey

2013 Multitude Art Prize Discourse Series

2013.04.28 10:00-18:30 UCCA Auditorium

The Multitude Art Prize Discourse Series is an annual program of discussions that travel with the exhibition program across Asia, opening up thematically with each edition. As a starting point for a long-term conversation, this year’s inaugural conference explores questions fundamental to the project’s inception.

The scale of geopolitical change taking place across Asia can make contemporary art seem powerless to intervene or even participate. As globalization has arguably taken over from where colonialism left off, contemporary art’s often-complicit relationship with this new cultural and economic order complicates or perhaps compromises its role in society. Within this backdrop, how do contemporary artists and institutions help to make culture relevant for society in different parts of Asia? Do they constitute a ‘multitude,’ and what meaning can be generated as their identities continuously evolve with their contexts?

Speakers include:

Zdenka Badovinac, Director, ModernaGalerija (Museum of Modern Art) in Ljubljana, Slovenia

Bart de Baere, Director, Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp (M HKA), Belgium

Patrick D. Flores, Professor of Art Studies, University of the Philippines; Curator, Vargas Museum, Manila, Philippines;Adjunct Curator, National Art Gallery, Singapore

Kate Fowle, Chief Curator, Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture in Moscow, Russia; Director at Large, Independent Curators International (ICI), New York, United States

Mami Kataoka, Chief Curator, Mori Art Museum (MAM), Tokyo, Japan

November Paynter, Associate Director of Research and Programmes, SALT, Istanbul, Turkey

Jack Persekian, Director, Palestine Museum, Jerusalem

Philippe Pirotte, Adjunct Senior Curator, University of California Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, United States; Programme Director, Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing, China;Partner Curator for the Multitude Foundation in Hong Kong, China; Senior Advisor,Rijksakademie(Royal Academy of Visual Arts), Amsterdam, Netherlands

Bartomeu Marí Ribas, Director of the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA), Spain

Georg Schöllhammer, Director, Julius Koller Society, Vienna, Austria; Editor-in-Chief, Springerin – HeftefürGegenwartskunst, Vienna, Austria

Gao Shiming, Executive Director,School of Intermedia Art, China Academy of Art (CAA), Hangzhou, China

Ravi Sundaram, Fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), New Delhi, India; co-Founder of Sarai (a research program on media), New Delhi, India

The Multitude Foundation is a Hong Kong-registered charitable trust established in 2011 conceived out of the necessity for a genuine and sustainable cultural dialogue between the different regions of Asia. The Multitude Art Prize is the first major undertaking of the Multitude Foundation. For more information: www.multitudefoundation.org, info@multitudefoundation.org

Wuhan Art Terminus (WH.A.T.) is a contemporary art institution currently being developed in Wuhan, China. By basing projects on international collaboration and the investigation of contemporary issues, WH.A.T. endeavors to create experimental projects both in Wuhan and around the world. WH.A.T. is a Wuhan Dingyun project, and is scheduled to open in 2014. For more information: info@what-center.cn

The Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) is a comprehensive, not-for-profit art center serving a global Beijing public. As a platform for contemporary art linking China and the world, UCCA offers exhibitions and public programs which focus attention on the cultural situation in China, stimulate the development of the arts, and advance the public cultural sensibility. For further information please visit www.ucca.org.cn.