Witte de With wins the AICA 2014 Award

Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art received the AICA 2014 Award for the exhibition The Temptation of AA Bronson (5 September 2013–5 January 2014) last night. The ceremony was hosted by Robert-Jan Muller, chairman of AICA Netherlands (Association des Critiques d’Art), and featured a laudatory speech by Laurie Cluitmans, jury member for the AICA Award 2014. The evening was concluded with an acceptance speech by Witte de With’s Director Defne Ayas and artist AA Bronson.

As a response to receiving the AICA Award 2014 Witte de With Director Defne Ayas said: “On 14 March 2012 at the time of the waning half-moon, AA Bronson led a ritual blessing, with no audience, to inaugurate the program at the Witte de With under my directorship, which followed up with Bronson’s participation in our group show Surplus Authors, eventually leading to the staging of The Temptation of AA Bronson, the exhibition that is now recognized both by peers and audiences.” She added: “It is also a very special week that highlights the importance of art criticism, as we are also about to present The Prize for Young Dutch Art Criticism.”

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.