The Seventh International Awards for Art Criticism (IAAC) Announces Eugene Yiu Nam Cheung as Winner of the First Prize
In May 2021, the international jury panel for the Seventh International Awards for Art Criticism (IAAC) held an online meeting hosted by the Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum to deliberate over the submissions and decide on a winner. After two days of intense discussions on May 14-15, it was announced that Eugene Yiu Nam Cheung, based in Berlin, had been awarded the first prize worth 80,000 yuan and a short residence in Shanghai.
Cheung won with a review titled: Aftermath: Lessons in Futurity from Lawrence Abu Hamdan, which is about the exhibition of Lawrence Abu Hamdan on YouTube. Eugene Yiu Nam Cheung is a writer based in Berlin, and founding editor of institutional critique platform Decolonial Hacker. He studied art history, gender studies and law at the University of Sydney, and is currently the curatorial assistant at the Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin.
Peter S Brock, based in New York, and Wang Kaimei and Zhang Hao, both based in Shanghai, won joint second prizes, worth 10,000 yuan each.
This year, the IAAC7 received a record 253 submissions in both Chinese and English from authors based in 34 countries around the world. The largest number of submissions were from China, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, and Russia, accounting for 83% of the total.
There were 136 Chinese-language submissions, representing an increase of 7.9% compared with last year, with authors based in 24 provinces, cities and regions across China. The top three sources of submissions were Beijing, Shanghai and Sichuan Province, while Chinese-language submissions from overseas authors accounted for 18%, which was significantly lower than 31% received for the IAAC6. Among the domestic exhibitions critiqued by the entrants, 29% were in Shanghai, ranking first, followed by Beijing with 21%.
There were 117 English-language submissions, with the largest number from the United Kingdom followed by the United States. These two, combined, accounted for 49% of the total English entries, while 11 from China accounted for a further 9%.
Over the past seven years, the International Awards for Art Criticism have seen their international reach gradually grow. This year attracted submissions for the first time from entrants based in Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, Afghanistan, and Albania.
Since the beginning, the International Awards for Art Criticism have received a total of 1,612 valid submissions from authors in 74 countries and regions around the world. There has been a total of 24 winners and 103 finalists selected from among contestants, including curators, artists, authors and freelance writers, as well as teachers, students, art industry figures and people who simply love and appreciate art.
This year’s jury panel was composed of five judges: Ding Ning, Professor of Art History and Theory, Peking University; Ken Neil, Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities, The Royal College of Art; Lisbeth Rebollo Gonçalves, President of the International Association of Art Critics; Richard Dyer, Editor-in-Chief of Third Text; and Pauline J. Yao, Lead Curator, Visual Art, M+ Hong Kong.
After two days’ critical scrutiny of forty shortlisted submissions – all of them, anonymised - the jury unanimously decided on four winners:
First prize winner (English review): Eugene Yiu Nam Cheung
Joint second prize winner (English review): Peter S Brock
Joint second prize winner (Chinese review): Wang Kaimei
Joint second prize winner (Chinese review): Zhang Hao
Henry Meyric Hughes, Chair of the International Awards for Art Criticism (IAAC), said: ‘Despite our early anxieties about holding this competition during the Covid-19 pandemic, when many museums and galleries had been closed to the public, we were once again rewarded with numerous submissions from all over the world. For the first time, contenders for these coveted Awards were permitted to review on-line exhibitions, and a number of participants took advantage of this possibility. Overall, the standard of entries in both Chinese and English was high, and the forty anonymised reviews on the final shortlist exceptionally high. Unsurprisingly, the final overall winner and several of the runners-up addressed issues of concern related to the epidemic and its consequences. We are especially grateful to the five highly qualified members of the jury for their fair-mindedness and deep engagement with the texts.’
20 reviews from the final selection – one half of them in Chinese and the other half in English -, including the four Award-winning reviews, will be published towards the end of the year in the IAAC’s bilingual Exhibitions Reviews Annual 7.
The Seventh International Awards for Art Criticism are sponsored by Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum, co-organised by the Royal College of Art (RCA), London and Edinburgh University College of Art (ECA). The chief sponsors are China Minsheng Banking Corp. Ltd and Shanghai Minsheng Art Foundation.