The awarding ceremony of ‘2013 Caissa Rising Artists: Exhibition for Nominated Students from Art Academy’ took place at Today Art Museum on 21st July 2013. The organizer is Today Art Museum and the sponsor is CAISSA Touristic. The ‘Exhibition for Nominated Students’ of Today Art Museum started from 2006. This exhibition is the first public art award held by non-governmental non-profit art museum in China and it is dedicated to college students. Since the founding of the ‘Exhibition for Nominated Students’, with mature running system, authoritative academy standard and impartial selection, it attracts attention from art world widely. It is the 8th edition this year.

Xu Lei, the Artistic Director of the Today Art Museum, presented the Special Award

As one of the best travel agencies in China, CAISSA Touristic is active in travel production creation with its unique cultural perspective. It hopes using its influence to bring more people's attention to the enjoyment of art and life, and involves itself in the development of art. CAISSA Touristic joins itself into this ‘Exhibition for Nominated Students’. It aims to support Chinese native rising artists. Through this commitment to public cultural programme, the company wishes to give more opportunities to young artists with potentials and help them achieve more in their art career.
 

Gao Peng, the Associated Director of the Today Art Museum, and presented the Gold Award 

The exhibition is titled Roam and Art. It has two sections which are Heartbeat and Arrival. The participants of this exhibition will exceed the mediocre, roam in the free ocean of thoughts and regain a natural and spontaneous growth. In their Heartbeat lies a free will of travel which is more open and broader. The free roam of imagination and self-expression will help them arrive at the dream for art. Meanwhile, there is a new section in this exhibition dedicated to video works. The Exhibition Academy Committee hopes to focus on video works in this section, so that students in this field may have chances to challenge themselves and more students may be interested in the field of video art. ‘2013 Exhibition for Nominated Students’ focuses on the recruitment of design works as well. This year the exhibition works with ZCOOL, an online platform that ‘put designers in the center of the stage’. An additional chapter of candidate works recruitment is opened and targeted to design works. It builds a bridge of communication between designers and art museums.
 

QuGuangCi prize awarded prizes

Having spent many months for candidate works recruitment, the Organizer Committee collected more than 7,000 works by 3,000 students from all over the world. 157 works are admitted to the exhibition, including 137 paintings and more than 20 video works. These works are open to visitors starting from 19th July at the exhibition hall of Today Art Museum. The judges are to visit the exhibition, review and make appraisal of the works directly on site before 21st July. In this way the organizer assures impartial and fair judgment of the works. Mr. He Guiyan, the young critic, is invited to be the curator of this year's exhibition. The curating team included college students to support the execution of the project.

 
On the evening of 21st July 2013, ‘2013 Caissa Rising Artists: Exhibition for Nominated Students from Art Academy’ winners are announced. Winner of the Special Award is Zhao Xiaoxiao; winner of the Xu Weixin Award is Zheng Zicheng; winner of the Su Xinping Award is Ai sha jiang·Tu erxun; winner of the Zhou Jingxin Award is Wang Yawei; winner of the Qu Guangci Award is Qian Liang; winner of the Zhang Jian Award is Du Yaxuan. Winners of 3 gold prizes, 6 silver prizes, 12 bronze prizes and 14 prizes of excellence are announced, too. There are also three winners respectively for each of the Best Imaging Award, Best Creative Award and Best Production Award from the video section.
 

Group photo of the award winning artists and honored guests

The exhibition is taking place from 19th July to 22nd August 2013 at 3/F Hall 1, 2/F Hall 2 and 1/F, 2/F of Hall 3, Today Art Museum. An online virtual exhibition is also available for our visitors to experience a 360 panorama view of the exhibition at our digital art museum project on the internet. We look forward to more attention on the art students and the unlimited potentials they are bringing to future contemporary art in China.