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Exchange in Visual Arts
YOUNG VISUAL ARTISTS AWARDS
A Project of the Foundation for a Civil Society
The Foundation for a Civil Society (FCS) with affiliates in ten
countries in Central and Southeastern Europe has organized a major
international award program for young visual artists in the region.
This unique program was established with President Havel and a group
of artists in Czechoslovakia in 1990. Since then this highly
successful annual program with national exhibitions and awards,
including a residency program in the United States for artists under
the age of 35, has now been expanded from the Czech Republic to
Slovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia,
Slovenia, Albania and Bulgaria and two more countries Hungary and
Romania are currently in negotiations. The intention of President
Havel and the organizers of the Jindrich Chalupecky Award in
Czechoslovakia was to expose young artists to the free world and to
underscore the role of culture in democratization. They established an
open and transparent annual competition judged by an independent and
changing jury without the nepotism and favoritism of communist days.
The award provides a young visual artist under 35 not only with the
opportunity to have a joint exhibition with the finalists at a
prestigious gallery or museum but also to travel to the United States
and participate in the dynamic art scene in New York. Upon returning
home, he or she has a solo exhibition. The Chalupecky Award today
awards a cash prize along with the support to develop or publish
artistic projects. It is now the most respected arts award in the
country and the model for the rest of the YVAA countries. After the
split of Czechoslovakia, a similar award was also established in
Slovakia in 1996. Several years later art organizations from other
countries expressed interest in replicating this structure and their
effort gave birth to the Young Visual Artists Awards project, which
now encompasses ten awards Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,
Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovenia, Albania and
Bulgaria. To date over 80 young artists have been awarded so far and
for all of them, the receipt of the award marked a significant change
in their careers.The Foundation for a Civil Society (FCS) has managed
the U.S. part of the award, since 1990, receiving the winning artists
and arranging their visit and travel for a six-week stay in New York
with program and a studio at the highly acclaimed International Studio
and Curatorial Program. Organizations in each country independently
conduct the in-country competition, the exhibitions, the fundraising
and the award ceremony, reflecting their commitment to the goals of
the awards. The Trust for Mutual Understanding has generously funded
the YVAA residency program since 1991. FCS is seeking the necessary
funding for the residency program as it expands to include Hungary and
Romania, build program capacity and general operating support. The
project builds on a unique, organically growing program that started
with an idea in 1990 and over time grew into a group of awards in ten
countries. The fact that the awards have shown growing interest in
their own countries is the expression of the strength of the simple
but effective idea behind the awards. Basing cooperation on an
organically created network is a unique process in the region and so
far only limited cooperation between all of these countries exists.
The oldest of the awards, the Jindrich Chalupecky Award in the Czech
Republic, is an example that organizers in the other countries wish to
follow the prestige of the award within the Czech Republic is
constantly growing and the winners and finalists of the award are
constantly present on their local as well as the international art
scenes. The same is happening in the other countries to name a few,
YVAA winners and finalists were selected to exhibit at Venice,
Istanbul and Berlin biennials, and Documenta and Manifesta exhibitions
all within the past three years. Giving the art scene the tools for
proper presentation of such success would result in multiplication of
the effect of the awards. In some countries the awards are the only
competitive event on the art scene run in a completely transparent
method. The continuity and stability of these independent awards is an
innovation in itself.In November 2005, a joint exhibition of YVAA
finalists was held in Prague on the occasion of the sixteenth Jindrich
Chalupecky Award ceremony. While the exhibition was on view, the FCS,
again with the support of the Trust for Mutual Understanding, convened
the organizers and winning artists from all of the eight countries to
meet in Prague. In addition to a public presentation of each award and
the winning artists work, the participants met in a closed meeting to
share their organizational experience and thoughts on how to build on
the remarkable inter-European and international informal network that
has been developed over time. The topics of discussion included
fundraising needs for continued sustainability of all of the awards,
the extreme interest in informal trans-border and regional
collaboration, and the need to expose the local art scenes to foreign
audience, especially through creation of personal contacts.As a
follow-up to the Prague meeting, in 2006 the Foundation/Center for
Contemporary Arts in Bratislava, the Contemporary Art Center Skopje
and the Institute for Contemporary Art, SCCA Zagreb with the support
of the FCS applied for and were awarded a grant from the European
Cultural Foundation to establish a simple coordination entity Center
for Exchange in Visual Arts as a presentation and promotion platform
for the YVAA winners and finalists and the awards, and the exposure of
the art scenes in the region to international audience and regional
general public. The grant financed the second gathering of YVAA
artists and organizers, and another joint exhibition of the 2006 YVAA
winners which took place in October-November, 2006, hosted and
organized by the Kosova Art Gallery in Prishtina. The discussions
included establishment of methods for distribution of grants from the
YVAA/Exchange in Visual Arts travel fund created with seed money from
the ECF; further fundraising for travel and exchange of artists and
art professionals and curators; website design and structure; sharing
experience on art education on the request of the Kosovo
co-organizers; planning of next joint exhibitions and gatherings and
the possibilities of expansion of the YVAA program to Bulgaria,
Romania, Montenegro and Albania. The grant also financed the creation
of YVAA website at www.yvaa.net which was launched in 2007 and is
being continuously updated with portfolios of YVAA winning and
finalist artists from all of the participating 10 countries.With a
generous grant from ERSTE Foundation, the third joint exhibition,
symposium and gathering took place in July 2008 in Belgrade. Apart
from the YVAA organizers and winning artists additional guests from
the CEE & SEE region as well as the rest of Europe and the US were
invited to participate in the symposium and to share their view of the
art scene in the entire region. The events bringing almost 40 art
professionals and artists together were the largest in the YVAA
program to date. Travel grants from the Exchange in Visual Arts
program were also used for this occasion.
A fourth joint exhibition and symposium was recently held in
Bratislava, Slovakia in collaboration with the Foundation Center for
Contemporary Art on October 2011. The 4 month exhibition at the Slovak
National Gallery, co-curated by F-CCA and the Hungarian ACAX/Ludwig
Museum curator Tijana Stepanovic featured 17 finalists and winners of
the awards over the past decade. A two day symposium brought together
artists, arts professionals from the region, Europe and the United
States to discuss and assess the role of culture in the changing
global political and economic landscape and the importance of cultural
engagement to mutual understanding and diplomacy. This important
regional cultural exchange proram was generously funded by ERSTE
Foundation, Central European Initiative, and the various US embassies.
AWARDS AND THEIR ORGANIZERS: ARDHJE AWARD TICA Tirana, Albania;
ZVONO AWARD - Sarajevo Center for Contemporary Arts, Bosnia and
Herzegovina; BAZA AWARD Institute of Contemporary Art Sofia,
Bulgaria; RADOSLAV PUTAR AWARD - Institute for Contemporary Art, SCCA
Zagreb, Croatia; JINDRICH CHALUPECKY AWARD - Jindrich Chalupecky
Society, Czech Republic; ARTIST OF TOMORROW AWARD - Kosova Art
Gallery, Kosovo; DENES AWARD - Contemporary Art Center Skopje,
Macedonia; DIMITRIJE BASICEVIC MANGELOS AWARD Kontekst Gallery &
DEZ.ORG, Serbia; OSKAR CEPAN AWARD - Foundation/Center for
Contemporary Arts, Slovakia; OHO AWARD - Center and Gallery in P74,
Slovenia.
YVAA
Official Site
Similar Partner:
CEC ARTSLINK
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