WIGA 2012
How much truth can art bear? This enigmatic quotation from French philosopher Alain Badiou was the springboard for the third annual What Is Good Art? Competition and Exhibition.
Read a profile of the competition and exhibition in the Duke Chronicle here.
The distinguished panel of judges for the 2012 competition included a mix of people new to the project and a number of returning experts:
Christopher Bass, Vice President at Oak Hill Capital Partners, L.P.
William Fick, Visiting Assistant Professor of the Practice of Visual Arts
Noah Pickus, Director, Kenan Institute for Ethics
Kimerly Rorschach, Director, Nasher Museum of Art
Raquel Salvatella de Prada, Assistant Professor of the Practice of Visual and Media Arts
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Professor in Practical Ethics in the Department of Philosophy and the Kenan Institute for Ethics
Charles Thompson, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Duke Center for Documentary Studies
With a strong field, the judges chose to award two additional Honorable Mention Prizes in addition to First, Second, and Third Prizes.
Competitions winners were:
First Prize: Pinar Yoldas, Speculative Biologies
Second Prize: Nikita Yogeshwarun, Flaw
Third Prize: Rebecca Kuzemchak, Any Given Day
Honorable Mention: Yumian Deng, Musician Underground
Honorable Mention: Hannah Metaferia, Accademia
During the Opening Gala on April 13th, attendees voted for Gallery Choice prize, producing the the first-ever tie. This year’s Gallery Choice Prize co-winners are:
Carrie Arndt, Gollum
Colin Heasley, Gilt
View the Team Kenan’s curation companion guide to the exhibition here:
The full gallery is online below.
Yumian Deng, Musician Underground
Honorable Mention
Photography is one of the most truth telling media because the camera captures the world as it sees it, unaltered. Thus, the sole purpose of documentary photography is to record the world as it is. Musician Underground truthfully depicts the condition and mood of a New York subway station and the lonely performer, who is surrounded by the old, wet (it was raining that day, and the water leaked down to the station as always. I was traveling by myself without an umbrella and was pretty miserable, so I felt sympathy towards him), and rusty pipes and trusses. Furthermore, the musician and the pipes are dark in the photo, and one pipe coincidentally is “connected” with him, making him an integrated element in this environment. Together they formed a self-contained space: an underground musician and his world right beneath the glamorous streets and skyscrapers of New York City.