On April 26, 2016, “Wang Shikuo Award” & TAM Exhibition for the Nominated Chinese Contemporary Young Artists launched a press conference of the shortlisted artists at the Today Art Museum where they officially announced the shortlisted artists of Wang Shikuo Award that had been nominated at the exhibition of the year. The Director of Today Art Museum Gao Peng, Secretary-General of Wang Shikuo Foundation Wang Qun, representatives of the shortlisted artists and some of the winners of Wang Shikuo scholarship attended the press conference.
From “Wang Shikuo Scholarship” to “Wang Shikuo Award”
As an important contemporary revolutionary realism painter in China in the 20th century, people’s art educator, Wang Shikuo left behind many classic works of art, which have had an extremely important influence on Chinese modern art history.
As early as before the “Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Wang Shikuo” was held by CAFA in 2011, Wang Shikuo’s wife Wu Xian decided to donate 2 million RMB to set up the “Wang Shikuo Scholarship”, to support the excellent graduate students going abroad for an academic exchange. So far, the “Wang Shikuo Scholarship” has been successfully selected over the last five years, successively funding 22 students to go abroad to inspect art.
In 2015, Wang Shikuo Foundation was formally registered, and it was expanded to the “young artist groups”. Together with Today Art Museum to hold the first “Wang Shikuo Award” & TAM Exhibition for Nominated Chinese Contemporary Young Artists, which formally started in February 2016, aimed at inheriting Wang Shikuo’s sincere love for art, deeply reseraching the young artists with excellent qualities including “talent, dedication, persistence, sincerity and innovation”, offering them an opportunity of show and rewarding them, to encourage them to realize their dreams on the road of art creation.
The 2016 the Wang Shikuo Award is intended to be divided into two parts: the experts’ recommendation and the social acquisition, choosing the outstanding young artists aged between 30 and 45 years old, who persistently adhere to creation.
Abandoning the Limitation of the Category, Selecting the True Outstanding Young Artists
Since the solicitation started, the award has received an extensive social attention from all walks of life, through the 101 days of national audition, as well as the nomination and recommendation of art institutions and experts, the organizing committee received a total of more than 4000 artworks from all over the country, including oil paintings, traditional Chinese painting, installation, sculpture, and new media art and other categories. “Wang Shikuo Award” & TAM Exhibition of Nominated Chinese Contemporary Young Artists will be shown in Building No.1 of Today Art Museum on May 14.
The jury of the nomination exhibition considered and discussed the registered works from multiple perspectives including their art achievements, art experiences and so on, unanimously electing a total of ten artists including Guo Donglai, Huang Zhitao, Lin Feifei, Liu Xianghua, Li Rui, Tian Xiaolei, Shi Fu, Shang Chengxiang, Wu Juehui, Zhang Fan to attend the Wang Shikuo Award exhibition.
It is worth mentioning that it exhibits a display area titled “Salute to Wang Shikuo”, to feature Wang Shikuo’s important manuscripts and related documents, Gao Peng said, “It will help the artists and the audience to see how Wang Shikuo adhered to the artistic creation, how to blend art in the spirit.”
Innovation of the Selection Mechanism: Seven Expert Judges + Review of the Masses
There will be an on-site selection of the winners of Wang Shikuo Award from ten outstanding artists at the opening ceremony of the exhibition and the awards ceremony on May 14. Today Art Museum will respectively edit a small documentary for the ten artists, and each artist will have a five-minute presentation of his art creation over the years. Thereafter, seven professional judges will comment and question the artists.
On the choice of the seven judges, it selected public figures with a good impression of the credibility of art circles, including: Vice President of China National Academy of Arts Tan Ping, independent curator Huang Du, Director of Pace Beijing Leng Lin, the famous collector Tang Ju, famous artist Xiang Jing, representative of Wang Shikuo Foundation Wang Dayong, Director of Today Art Museum Gao Peng. In addition to the seven expert judges, the selection first adopted the participation of public judges, namely winners of the successive Wang Shikuo Scholarship will participate in the review. Finally it will integrate the scores given by the seven expert judges and public judges, to officially select the winners of the Wang Shikuo Award 2016.
For the winning artists, in addition to receiving bonuses offered by Wang Shikuo Foundation, they will have a chance to hold a solo exhibition at Today Art Museum. After this, the Today Art Museum and Wang Shikuo Foundation will hold a series that pays constant attention to the artists, including exhibition, overseas study, residency project, media resources, etc., to help them develop as far as possible in the next few years.
About the Exhibition
Title: “Wang Shikuo Award” & TAM Exhibition of Nominated Chinese Contemporary Young Artists
Hosts: Today Art Museum, Wang Shikuo Foundation
Artists: Guo Donglai, Huang Zhitao, Lin Feifei, Liu Xianghua, Li Rui, Tian Xiaolei, Shi Fu, Shang Chengxiang, Wu Juehui, Zhang Fan
Opening Time: 3pm, May 14, 2016
Venue of the opening ceremony: 2/F, Building No.1 Today Art Museum
Duration: May 14 – June 26, 2016
Venue: 3/F, 4/F, Building No.1 Today Art Museum
Text by Lin Jiabin/CAFA ART INFO, Photo by Today Art Museum
Translated by Chen Peihua and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO
