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.
Pinar Yoldas, Speculative Biologies
First Prize
“...from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” Charles Darwin , The Origin of Species If LIFE started NOW, the beginning would not be “so simple” as Darwin suggested . as we have complicated our relationship with life.The boundaries between nature and culture sublimated and we are breathing a gaseous mixture of man-made with natural . Our very human culture, overrides nature. Our capitalistic biomass manufactures mountains of e-waste, beaches of tar , rivers of zinc, oceans of plastic . We are an army of plastic surgeons giving the planet a new face. a face that opens its eyes to new life forms , new beginnings , new extremities . What kind of fish will swim in the plastic ocean? Who will be sunbathing on the beaches of tar ? What plants will thrive in a forest of concrete and steel? Which insects will lay eggs on the valleys of asphalt? What birds will fly in the hazy mornings of a smog stained sky? Who will inhabit the new face of the planet? Who will leave? Who will stay? Could it be that the time of post-natural has come? We are writing the futurist manifesto of evolution . Like Marinetti we believe in the “beauty of speed”. Hence we catalyze all kinds of reactions : chemical, political, biological, ethical, genetical. Speculative Biologies is a research project that emerges out of a contemporary primordial ooze. The project envisions a new kingdom of synthetic species that are designed specifically for a post-human world. Speculative biologies explore notions of mortality , fertility and excess that governs them. By using speculation as an intellectual tool , the project envisions alternative life forms to raise questions about the future of gender, identity, intimacy and bioethics.