AICA Award 2014 Ceremony

Tuesday 9 December 2014 , 4:45 – 5 PM

AA Bronson. Courtesy the artist & Esther Schipper. Photo courtesy: Cassander Eeftinck Schattenkerk

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Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art is pleased to announce that the exhibition The Temptation of AA Bronson (5 September 2013 – 5 January 2014), has been awarded the AICA Award 2014 by AICA Netherlands (Association des Critiques d’Art).

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AA Bronson

From the jury:

“The artist AA Bronson (1946) did not only act as curator in this exhibition, but also as the connecting force that brought together a group of younger generation artists and friends through collaborations and their individual works. In both form and theme The Temptation of AA Bronson was a hybrid project, in which death, bodies, mind, sex, rituals and magic come together in an exhibition full of pain and hope. With this exhibition Bronson seems to honor his partners of General Idea and by doing so provide a public-healing session. AA Bronson gives a critical, intense and playful view on what the arts can mean in understanding the modern human condition and maybe even make it a bit more bearable.”

As a response to the AICA Award 2014 Witte de With Director Defne Ayas says: “AA Bronson’s exhibition, which included both his solo and collaborative work, explored aspects of ritual, religion, alternative publishing, and queer mysticism, and was tremendously well-received by our peers and audiences alike. Bronson showed us all that he is an exceptional exhibition-maker and offered a complex antidote to the melancholia of secularized institutional spaces. We are honored and humbled by this recognition and would like to express our gratitude to AICA Netherlands.”

Every year the AICA Award is alternately given to a Dutch institution, a publication or exhibition. For this year’s award The Temptation of AA Bronson was chosen from exhibitions that took place during 2011-2013. The shortlist-jury consisted this year of AICA-members Laurie Cluitmans, Nanda Janssen and Jhim Lamoree. The 185 members of AICA Netherlands voted, amongst them art critics, museum curators and museum directors.

The four other nominated exhibitions were Christoph Schlingensief: Fear at the Core of Things, BAK, Utrecht; Lissitzky – Kabakov, Utopie en werkelijkheid, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Hand Made, lang leve het ambacht, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Er was eens… De Collectie nu, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.In 2013 the AICA Award was awarded to De Hallen Haarlem.

The award ceremony of the AICA Award 2014 will take place at Witte de With on 9 December, 5-7 pm.