Over 500 nominations for the Prudential Eye Awards for Contemporary Asian Art came from 30 countries throughout greater Asia. The Awards celebrate and recognise artistic talent from greater Asia across digital/video, installation, painting, photography and sculpture, and offer a platform to showcase contemporary Asian artists. The work of all 20 shortlisted artists has been brought together in an exhibition at Suntec City. The winners have been announced in January 2014. Tomas Urbanec, CEO, Prudential Singapore, added on the Prudential Singapore Young Artist Award:
“The Prudential Singapore Young Artist Award was conceived to celebrate and recognise some of Singapore’s most talented contemporary young artists. The standard of work has been outstanding and is testament to the quality of two of Singapore’s leading arts colleges, LASALLE and NAFA, who have participated in the Award’s inaugural year. In line with Prudential’s commitment to supporting local communities through education, we look forward to growing this Award further in the coming years.’’
The Prudential Eye Awards were founded by the Global Eye Programme, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to promoting and nurturing Asian artists, established by Parallel Contemporary Art in collaboration with the Saatchi Gallery. Prudential is the title sponsor of the Awards, having supported Indonesian Eye (2011) and Hong Kong Eye (2013) exhibitions, and Malaysian Eye (coming soon in March 2014). To date, the Global Eye Programme has held 17 exhibitions worldwide and been viewed by over two million people.
The Prudential Eye Awards 2014 winners are:
Daniel Crooks (digital/video), Ben Quilty (painting), Jompet Kuswidananto (installation), Trent Parke (photography) and Seoung Wook Sim (sculpture) were announced as winners of the Prudential Eye Awards for Contemporary Asian Art 2014. Each was awarded a prize of US$20,000 at an awards ceremony at Suntec City, Singapore.
Ben Quilty was named as the overall winner for the Eye Awards for Contemporary Asian Art 2014, receiving a further US$30,000 and a solo exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery, London, in the summer of 2014. His rich impasto paintings of bold and unsettling subjects explore the problematic relationship between the personal and the cultural.
The internationally acclaimed Chinese artist Liu Xiaodong was honoured for his contribution to contemporary Asian art with an award sponsored by Audemars Piguet. The Singapore Biennale took the prize for exhibition of the year sponsored by Skira and Galerie Chandan in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia was recognised as the most promising Asian gallery for its pioneering work.
The Prudential Singapore Young Artist Award presented by Prudential Singapore and the British Council recognised shortlisted young artists from LASALLE College of the Arts and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts across five categories. James John Dycoco from NAFA was named overall winner for his photographic work.
The awards ceremony was attended by the shortlisted artists, judges, celebrated artist Liu Xiaodong, leading curators, gallerists, art world figures and business leaders.