Ulay and the two authors of his monograph: Maria Rus Bojan and Alessandro Cassin have the pleasure to announce that “Whispers, Ulay on Ulay”, published by Valiz Foundation Amsterdam has been awarded the AICA Award 2015 by AICA Netherlands (Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art).
 
The AICA Nederland Award Ceremony 2015 will take place on
Friday 18 September 2015, 5 – 7 pm
Amsterdam Drawing Fair, NDSM-Plein next to nr. 28, 1033 WB Amsterdam-Noord
(by invitation of AICA Nederland)
 
Whispers, Ulay on Ulay
Authors: Maria Rus Bojan, Alessandro Cassin
With contributions by: Marina Abramović, Laurie Anderson, Timea Andrea Lelik, Tevž Logar, Thomas McEvilley, Charlemagne Palestine, Lena Pislak, John Reuter, and Silvio Wolf.
Published in 2014 by Valiz Foundation with the generous support of the Mondriaan Foundation, Prins Bernhardt Cultuurfonds and MB Art Agency.
 
Every year the AICA Award is alternately given to a Dutch institution, a publication or exhibition. For this year’s award the monograph “Whispers, Ulay on Ulay” was chosen from a number of books published during 2013-2015.
This year’s shortlist-jury consisted of the AICA members: Edna Van Duyn, Nat Muller and Wieteke van Zeil.
AICA Netherlands consists of 185 members amongst them art critics, museum curators and museum directors.
 
From the jury: “The editor Maria Rus Bojan realized a generous book that presents a chronological documentation, spanning more than 40 years of artistic creation, accounting Ulay's personal artistic philosophy, and also, his ethical and life principles. (…) Published by Astrid Vorstermans and Valiz Foundation Amsterdam this book transcends the usual traditional monograph or catalogue raisonné. In Alessandro Cassin’s interviews the main themes of Ulay's oeuvre are approached in a non-chronological manner, however both Rus Bojan and Cassin manage to contextualize this body of works both from a critical and art historical perspective. Beyond the introvert and contemplative side of Ulay's practice, the publisher made a book of international allure aiming to make more comprehensive for a larger audience the lesser-known works of this artist, who used to be for years Marina Abramović’s life and work partner. The book underlines Ulay's creative development both in relation to his present concerns and the history of the last decades of the art of the 20th century. The images are supporting the text and the full-page illustrations functions like a visual biography. The design by Haller Brun is adequately tailored to the careful approach to content.”
 
As a response to the AICA Award 2015, Maria Rus Bojan, a member of AICA Nederland herself, said: “My gratitude goes to Ulay for his opening and trust in our editorial project. The sense of his life is the very sense of this book, and we are happy that we were able to emphasize his radical and innovative contribution to the history of performance art and Polaroid photography in the Netherlands and worldwide.  It has been a great experience to collaborate with Alessandro Cassin, a talented interviewer and a wonderful writer from New York City, whose contribution has been essential in accomplishing this endeavor. Many thanks to the other contributors, to Astrid Vorstermans, our publisher, who did literally everything for supporting this publication and to Haller Brun, the designers duo who made this book so beautiful and so appealing to everyone".
 
The two other nominated publications are:

• Hans den Hartog Jager, Het streven. Kan hedendaagse kunst de wereld verbeteren? Amsterdam, Athenaeum Polak & Van Gennep, 2014.

• Giving and Taking, Antidotes to a Culture of Greed. With contributions by: Peter Sloterdijk, Marcel Hénaff, Zygmunt Bauman, Joris Luijendijk, Frank Vande Veire, Henk Oosterling, Lars Spuybroek, Reimar Schefold, Lewis Hyde, and Arjen Mulder. Ed. Joke Brouwer en Sjoerd van Tuinen. Rotterdam, V2_Publishing / nai010, 2014.

 
In 2014 the AICA Award was awarded to Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam for the exhibition “The Temptation of AA Bronson”.