BY: Betina Crione Guest Writer for World Liberty TV

The Global Fine Art Awards (GFAA) celebrates art and culture by honoring this year’s 85 Nominees and crowning the 15 Award Winners today at the 4^th Annual Award Ceremony and Gala.  The black-tie gala was held at 583 Park Avenue, a historic New York landmark.

The ceremony was presided over by the GFAA Advisory Board and Judges – Founder and President, Judy Holm; Advisory Board Chair Lawrence Shindell; and Honorary Chair Hedva Ser, Paris-based UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and Special Envoy for cultural diplomacy, promoting cultural diversity, intercultural dialogue and a culture of peace through art. The master of ceremonies was Peter Trippi, member of the GFAA Executive Committee, and Judge Emeritus. Trippi is editor-in-chief of Fine Art Connoisseur magazine.

The ceremony, open to the public, was attended by over fifty VIPS, including more than thirty of this year’s Nominees. The GFAA program highlights the link between artists and their creations, the galleries that represent them, curated shows from the gallery, public art and museum worlds. This year, eleven galleries exhibiting at the concurrent Armory Show, a cultural collaborator of GFAA, represent more than fifteen 2017 GFAA Nominees including: Yayoi Kusama, Kerry James Marshall, Andy Goldsworthy, Jaume Plensa, Ana Mendieta, Wifredo Lam, Alexander Calder, Pablo Picasso, Irving Penn, Ai Weiwei and William Eggleston.

Guests included Shirin Neshat, Winner of the premier Global Humanity Award, accompanied by her family and Miciah Hussey and Caroline Luce, representatives from the Gladstone Gallery; Galerie Lelong & Co. Director Mary Sabbatino, proxy for three nominated artists represented by the gallery –  Winner Andy Goldsworthy for the first Global Planet Award; past GFAA Winner for Public Art (2015) and 2017 Global Humanity Award Nominee Jaume Plensa, and the late Ana Mendieta, also nominated for Global Humanity for her lifetime of work. Sabbatino was accompanied by Raquel Cecilia Mendieta, niece and film archivist of Ana Mendieta.

Farideh Lashai: When I Count, There Are Only You… But When I Look, There Is Only a Shadow, from the Museo Nacional Del Prado, in collaboration with the British Museum, received Honorable Mention for GFAA’s Fringe Award.  Traveling from Madrid to receive the Award, was curator Ana Martínez de Aguilar.  The late artist’s daughter, Maneli Keykavoussi, head of the Farideh Lashai Foundation, Edward Tyler Nahem gallerists Paloma Martin Llopis and Gallerist Leila Heller were also in attendance, honoring Lashai’s last work.

Additional Nominees at the event included Museum Director and curator Erlend Hoyersten and curator Jacob Vengberg Sevel, Winners of Best Public Art Award for the Triennial THE GARDEN – End of Times; Beginning of Times, at ARos Aarhus Kunstmuseum; The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Winners Dr. Maxwell (Mike) K. Hearn, Douglas Dillon Chairman of Asian Art, and Dr. Jason Sun, Brooke Russell Astor Curator of Chinese Art; Getty Museum Winners, Co-Curators Dr. Kristen Collins and Dr. Kenneth Lapatin; Hirshhorn Museum Director Melissa Chiu, Winner  for the nominated Yayoi Kusama exhibition Infinity Mirrors; Erin Barnett, Director of Exhibitions and Collections from the International Center of Photography (ICP), whose Perpetual Revolution exhibition won for Best Photography Award; Asia Society’s Shayne Doty, Managing Director for Philanthropy, Nominated for Secrets of the Sea: A Tang Shipwreck and Early Trade in Asia; Winner Dr. Catherine Whistler, Curator from the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University; Diane Tuft, Nominated photographer for the show Arctic Melt, with gallerists from Marlborough Gallery in New York; Tamara Chalabi and Paolo Columbo, Ruya Foundation’s Directors and Co-Curators of the Iraq Pavilion from the Venice Biennale which was a Finalist for the Best Public Art Award; London-based Global Humanity Nominee Baiqu Gonkar, Director and Curator of Art Represent, who was also a Panelist earlier in the morning.

Kris Callens, Director of the Fries Museum (Netherlands), which organized the Lawrence Alma-Tadema exhibition seen at three museums across Europe- which received Honorable Mention for the Youniversal Award, and Winner of YOU-2, the two public Awards. Amalia Cosmetatou, Executive Director and Director of Cultural Affairs and Roberta Casagrande-Kim, Assistant Manager of Exhibitions and Publications of the Onassis Foundation USA, representing nominated exhibition A World of Emotions: Ancient Greece, 700 BC – 200 AD , were honored by the presence of a number of colleagues. Their exhibition was crowned the Youniversal Award winner, after receiving the highest number of votes in the four-year history of the Award.

Susie Guzman, Director at Hauser & Wirth for Nominees Philip Guston, Lygia Pape and Hans Arp; Fiona McGovern from the Alison Jacques Gallery in London for Nominee, the late Ana Mendieta also attended in support of their artists.

Geographic, scale, ethnic and gender diversity are essential considerations in the research and nominating process.  The 85 Nominees this year represent works from 6 continents, 28 countries and 60 cities – from Beijing to Boston, from Melbourne to Montréal. Nineteen percent (19%) of this year’s Nominees are created by or are about Asian and Middle Eastern art and artists. One of the most prominent awards – Best Contemporary and Post-War Art, features women in 3 of the 8 Nominees.  Almost two-thirds of the Nominees emanate from lesser-known institutions and private initiatives, and the remaining 37% of the GFAA Nominees are from the top 100 art museums visited in the world (The Art Newspaper, April 2015).

In addition to the award ceremony the evening of March 8, GFAA launched a series of three panels, hosted by corporate sponsor, K&L Gates LLP. These panels, which took place the morning of March 8, were moderated by Dean Phelus, Senior Director of Leadership Programs at the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), and GFAA Judge; and by Desiree Moore, Partner at K&L Gates and member of the GFAA Executive Committee, Chair of Young Visionaries Committee.

The GFAA program also featured its first event hosted by the Young Visionaries Committee, at the National Arts Club on Gramercy Park, immediately following the Award Ceremony.

GFAA Team : Led by Founder and President Judy Holm, more than 30 dedicated professionals with extensive experience in art, academia, technology and business are committed to the future of the Global Fine Art Awards program and its mission. They represent a truly global perspective, with nationalities from 21 countries and 4 continents.

The Young Visionaries Committee (YV), chaired by Desiree Moore, Partner K&L Gates LLP, has the mission to increase awareness and support for GFAA within the up and coming international art world “visionaries.” As the future voice of GFAA, the YV committee engages the public via social media, events and educational programs.

Media, Arts, Educational and Cultural Partners : The Armory Show, Alserkal Avenue (Dubai), American Alliance of Museums (AAM), Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), De la Cruz Collection (Miami), DSL Collection (Paris), Edward Tyler Nahem Gallery, Family Office Elite magazine, Fine Art Connoisseur magazine, Fractured Atlas, Galerie Lelong & Co., Gladstone Gallery, Hauser & Wirth, Alison Jacques Gallery (London), Leighton House Museum, Leila Heller Gallery (New York and Dubai), Mapme, Marlborough Gallery, National Arts Club, Onassis Foundation USA, Paddle8, Traveling Exhibits Network, Vastari, White Rabbit Collection (Sydney), world red eye productions.

 

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