3/16/19 Tehran Times | Drents museum exhibition “Iran – Cradle of Civilization” wins GFAA award
Tehran Times: https://bit.ly/2Td2uL2
TEHRAN – The Drents museum has won an audience prize in New York at the prestigious Global Fine Art Awards. The prize was granted on March 12 for its contribution to hosting “Iran – Cradle of Civilization”, an enormous loan exhibit on the history of Persia.
Such awards are considered “as the Oscars within the museum world,” said the Drents Museum, which is located in Assen, in the northeastern Netherlands.
The exhibition attracted 115,000 visitors and showed with two hundred unique finds from National Museum of Iran. It showcased an anecdote of one of the oldest and most extraordinary cultures in the world, the museum said.
It featured earliest developments of agriculture and livestock farming from the very beginning to cuneiform clay tablets, gold beakers and ornaments, bronze weapons and beautifully painted ceramics associated with successive Iranian kingdoms.
Last year the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands, won the prize for the exhibition Alma-Tadema classical seduction.
“Iran – Cradle of Civilization” was opened to the public on June 17, 2018 with the attendance of researchers, experts, academia, and cultural heritage aficionados some of whom delivered speeches on the event.
Tehran’s Ambassador to The Hague, Alireza Jahangiri, called the show “an important initiative and a great cultural motion” that would take its visitors to a journey of one of the oldest and most interesting cultures in the world.
The Drents Museum, in return, put on show some 300 objects including stone tools, jewelry, and natural human mummies in three sections of archeology, pottery and paintings, at an exhibit hosed by the National Museum of Iran. The exhibit kicked off in October 2018 and well received by museumgoers in the Islamic Republic.
The winners by category:
Global Planet
“John Akomfrah: Purple,” Barbican, London; Bildmuseet Umeå, Sweden; TBA21 Academy, Vienna,;The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; and Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon
Global Humanity
“Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today,” Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
Honorable Mentions: “Fred Wilson: Afro Kismet,” Istanbul Biennial, Pace London, and Pace New York, and “Skate Girls of Kabul,” Aga Khan Museum, Toronto
Best Post War / Contemporary (WWII-Present) – Solo Artist
“Jasper Johns: Something Resembling Truth,” Royal Academy of Arts, London, The Broad, Los Angeles
Best Post War/Contemporary (WWII-Present) – Group or Theme
“Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World,” Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Guggenheim Bilbao
Best Impressionist and Modern (1838-WWII) – Solo Artist
“Lucio Fontana: Ambienti / Environments,” Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, Milan
Best Impressionist and Modern (1838-WWII) – Group or Theme
“Living Proof: Drawing in 19th-Century Japan,” Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis
“Post Zang Tumb Tuuum. Art Life Politics: Italia 1918–1943,” Fondazione Prada, Milan
Best Renaissance, Baroque, Old Masters and Dynasties (1200 – 1838) – Solo Artist
“Rembrandt: Britain’s Discovery of the Master, “Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
Honorable Mention: “UNKEI – The Great Master of Buddhist Sculpture,” Tokyo National Museum
Best Renaissance, Baroque, Old Masters and Dynasties (1200 – 1838) – Group or Theme
“Eternity and Time between Michelangelo and Caravaggio,” Musei San Domenico, Forlì, Italy
Honorable Mention: “Painted in Mexico 1700-1790: Pinxit Mexici (Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Best Ancient Art (circa 1200 BC)
“The World of the Fatimids,” Aga Khan Museum
Honorable Mention: “Mariana. A Bronze Age Kingdom in Turkmenistan,” Neues Museum, Berlin
Best Public or Outdoor Installation or Exhibition
“Softer: Jenny Holzer,” Blenheim Palace
Honorable Mention: “Georgia O’Keeffe: Visions of Hawai’I,” New York Botanical Garden
Best Photography
“Shape of Light,” Tate Modern, London
Best Design
“Japan in Architecture: Genealogies of Its Transformation,” Mori Art Museum, Tokyo
Best Fringe / Alternative Exhibition
“Charles I: King and Collector,” Royal Academy of Arts, London
Besides research-based nominations, GFAA accepts open calls from museums, biennials, fairs, galleries and other art organizations, as well as individual patrons.