In 1839, the French government bought the patent for the invention of Daguerre photography (daguerreotype photography) and officially published it, so this year was designated as the birth year of photography, and the birth of photography was announced at the Institut de France. In 2019, on the 180th anniversary of the birth of photography, in tribute to the legendary photographer William Klein, with the approval of the French National Assembly, the French Academy of Fine Arts established the "William Klein Photography Prize".
Anne Leibovitz
In 2021, the second edition of the "Wilhelm Klein Photography Prize" was won by photographic artist Annie Leibovitz, and the award ceremony was officially held on October 27 at the Auditorium of the Académie de France. Due to the epidemic, Zhong Weixing was unable to go to the scene and participate in the award ceremony online at the Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum.
The scene of the 2nd William Klein Photography Awards ceremony
Laurent Bertie Gerrard, Life Secretary-General of the Académie de France, awarded Anne Leibovitz a certificate
Laurent Bertigerard, Lifetime Secretary of the Académie de France, presented Anne Leibovitz with the Trophy
"Every time I visitEd William Klein in Paris, the old man never refused my request to meet." Zhong Weixing, founder of Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum, said. Zhong Weixing was William Klein's first Chinese friend, and their relationship began with Zhong Weixing's portrait of William Klein. In 2015, when preparing to build the museum, Zhong Weixing was also carrying out the "Face to Face Face" series of photography projects – systematically taking photos of the photography masters who recorded countless classic moments with lenses. In the process, he became acquainted with Wilhelm Klein and many academicians of the Académie française, so he became involved as a participant in the preparation and planning of the prize.
Zhong Weixing participated in the award ceremony online at the Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum
In order to obtain William Klein's permission to name the award after him, Zhong Weixing and another old friend of William Klein communicated with him many times, and the old man was happy to agree. Later, with the approval of the French National Assembly, the French Academy of Arts officially established the "Wilhelm Klein Photography Prize" award. The Académie des beaux-arts is one of the five academies of the Académie de France, which promotes the development of all kinds of arts by organizing competitions, awarding annual awards, funding artist residencies, granting grants, and paying attention to and protecting the French cultural heritage.
The Accademia de France
The award was selected by Willem Klein himself, all the photography academicians of the French Academy of Fine Arts and specially invited judges, and Zhong Weixing, founder of Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum, served as the lifelong co-chairman of the "William Klein Photography Award", aiming to recognize and encourage photographers who have devoted themselves to the cause of photography and made outstanding contributions to its development. Participants are not limited to age or nationality.
Due to the epidemic, the second "William Klein Photography Award" adopted the method of online and offline selection. The selection process is first organized by the French Academy of Arts to nominate candidates for the jury, and a large number of confidential solicitation of opinions are carried out to important art institutions and artists to form a shortlist. On this basis, all the judges will have one vote per person, fully express their opinions and discuss and vote, and the winner with the largest number of votes (in principle, a majority in principle) after deliberation will be the final winners.
First from left: Laurent Bertigerard, Life Secretary-General of the Académie française: Anne Lebovitz
Speaking of the evaluation criteria for photographers, Zhong Weixing said that the selection is based on the overall evaluation of several experts to select outstanding photographers in the current photography industry, and he also said that it includes the subjective consciousness of the judges, generally speaking, pay more attention to two aspects, one is the popularity in the world, and the other is an important position in the history of photography. Therefore, this award is not only a judgment of a certain work, but a systematic and comprehensive evaluation of the photographer based on the photographer's lifelong artistic achievements.
"From a certain point of view, what kind of photographer is selected by an award basically represents its positioning." As the life chairman of the jury of the "William Klein Photography Prize", Zhong Weixing realized at the beginning of his participation in the preparation of the award that the French government and the Accademia de France aimed to set up one of the most authoritative awards in the photography industry for photographers around the world.
Jean-Luc Monterosso shook hands with Anne Lebowitz and William Klein
Annie Leibovitz, winner of this year's "William Klein Photography Prize", has forged the epitome of contemporary portrait photography with her illustrious career. In the first edition of the selection, Anne Leibovitz was already recognized by several members of the jury. In Zhong Weixing's view, Anne Leibovitz has both a deep foundation and a photographer full of zeitgeist and contemporary consciousness, and her works include photographs for actors, directors, writers, musicians, athletes and political and business celebrities, as well as a large number of fashion photographs... This piece of work has become an important microcosm of today's society.
In 2019, almost at the same time as the "William Klein Photography Award" was established, the Chengdu Contemporary Film Museum set up the "Golden Panda Photography Art Award", which aims to promote the development of Chinese photography on the basis of ideology, scholarship and artistry, and commends outstanding photographic artists with wide influence, academic thought, independent spirit and artistic creativity in China.
The award is designed for video artists aged 30-60 who continue to create, and is recommended and selected by important representatives of the industry, academia, criticism and publishing circles at home and abroad, aiming to encourage them to continue to create, and to continue to experiment and explore in the complex context of Contemporary Chinese video culture.
The scene of the French Art Academy and the Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum are connected to the scene
Whether it is from the creation of photography, the establishment of the Contemporary Image Museum, or as a judge of the photography award, Zhong Weixing is constantly trying to connect the ecology of Chinese photography art, and it is not difficult to see his international vision and pattern from his past practice.
●
Dialogue with Zhong Weixing
Q: The day before yesterday, you participated in the award ceremony of the second "William Klein Photography Award" online, can you please share the scene of the award ceremony?
A: I was very touched by the award ceremony the day before yesterday, because I couldn't go to Paris to participate in the awards because of the epidemic. Generally speaking, the French award ceremony is usually held at 6 or 7 pm, considering the time difference in China, it is unprecedented to be held at 11:30 a.m. Paris time and 5:30 p.m. Beijing time. Secondly, Mr. William Klein's habit is always to get up at 3 or 4 p.m., and the old man specially got up early for this award, which also reflects their greatest respect.
Leonardo DiCaprio, photographed by Anne Leibovitz
Q: You and Anne Leibovitz are both portrait photographers, will you resonate with her work?
A: Anne Leibovitz's style is actually completely different from mine, and I really appreciate her work. From the perspective of my personal creation, I think the value of art lies in my own unique style. Anne Leibowitz also focuses on celebrities, such as politicians and celebrities in the entertainment industry, and I focus on photographers, and I firmly believe that I will have the opportunity to take her portraits in the future.
Second, I'm especially looking forward to my own unique language. But this does not prevent me from appreciating and learning from artists who are different from me, learning from their understanding of the essence of art and the spirit of creation in their bones.
Q: Is your series "Face to Face Face" still going on?
A: This is a project I've been doing all my life, and I've observed that there are countless good photographers around the world, but to this day not many people seem to be documenting them. Of course, I was dealing with the "insiders" of the "insiders", and I was fortunate to be highly recognized by them.
Q: Does this year's William Klein Photography Prize, which was awarded to Anne Leibovitz, mean that there will be a growing international focus on female photographers?
A: I think art knows no borders, no gender, and I can't talk about political correctness in art. We never look at gender, which is not part of our judging principles.
John Lennon with Yoko Ono Lennon, anne Leibowitz
Q: In 2019, Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum also founded the "Golden Panda Photography Art Award", both of which have deep roots with you, one in France and one in China, please share how the two awards are related, or what kind of dialogue they generate?
A: This is a particularly good question, one of these two awards is international and the other is Chinese. The "William Klein Photography Award" focuses on outstanding photographers around the world, and the "Golden Panda Photography Art Award" focuses on outstanding photographers in China today, and it should be emphasized here that it is not a lifetime achievement award.
We have observed that there are a lot of awards in China, and most of the high-quality and respected awards focus on up-and-coming photographers. I think that the current cutting-edge photographers have received a lot of attention, and the annual exhibition focus of Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum is basically local, local, and young, and actively supports young artists.
There are also a number of outstanding photographers in China, contemporary artists who opened their eyes to dialogue between the world and the West at the beginning of reform and opening up. We hope that through the establishment of the "Golden Panda Photography Art Award", we can fully observe the inheritance and development of photography and promote the development of photography ecology. As our independent "Golden Panda Photography Art Award", its positioning and starting point are basically the same as the "William Klein Photography Award".
Susan Sontag, photographed by Anne Leibowitz
Q: Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum has a rich collection and has been doing systematic academic combing work, can you please share what you are mainly doing in this regard?
A: What is the purpose of the establishment of chengdu contemporary image museum? What is the value? In our opinion, it is first and foremost a good platform for artists. Second, there is an accurate academic positioning and strong academic support. So after we build this platform, the first thing is to do things around the original intention. The basic requirement of scholarship is to be clear about what kind of exhibitions can be done and what kind of exhibitions cannot be done? In order to answer this question, it is necessary to systematically do analytical research.
Q: You just mentioned a word "academic positioning", so what is the orientation of Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum, or what do you think is the uniqueness of Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum?
A: First of all, I think we should make unremitting efforts to make Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum a world-class video museum. Our original intention was to have an art museum in China that can have an equal dialogue with the West. Second, we must follow the standards of the first-class image art museums in the West, which is a general direction. No matter how difficult it is, no matter how much time it takes, this original intention cannot be changed. I believe that if we want to gain a voice in the world, we must develop according to the goal of first-class development.
Second, from the specific operational level, we must strictly control the level of our exhibition. We believe that photography must focus on contemporary art, which represents the current direction of photography, a practical and exploratory thing, and I think it is a future of art. However, we cannot abandon the classic photography of history, for example, the Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum has set up a permanent exhibition of Bresson, and has also spent a lot of energy on the exhibition of young artists. While doing a good job in academics, public education is also a matter of great importance to us. There are regular public events every weekend.
In general, the exhibition function of the art museum is only one of the basic functions, and there must be collection, public education, academic research, foreign exchanges and so on. To truly do a good job in an art museum, we must demand ourselves according to first-class international standards.
Q: Whether it is your personal creation, the selection of awards, or the choice of exhibitions at Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum, there is a certain overlap of ideas, how do you think about your multiple identities?
A: I never thought I had so many roles, photography is an artist' identity, the responsibilities and responsibilities of building an art museum are different, and the feeling of being a judge is different, including trying to work with artists as curators.
I especially encourage people in this industry to understand these identities more, and after having different practices, it will definitely help to improve the overall artistic quality. For example, I used to be a photographer, then I am now a collector, and naturally I know what kind of works are more likely to be recognized; as the founder of the art museum, I visit many of the world's first-class art museums, and I know what kind of works can be exhibited in the museum. So I think I'm very happy, and having multiple identities allows me to look at this art from a different perspective, which has benefited me a lot.
Q: You mentioned a very crucial point, Chinese photography must have the right to speak when it goes to the world. What do you think is the biggest difficulty that Chinese photography encounters in the process of going global?
A: I think there are many people in China who have the ability and standard to go out, and I have observed two types, one is that they are unwilling to go out, and more importantly, they are not willing to pay energy or courage to go out, of course, the objective reasons are the impact of the epidemic, language communication and so on. I still encourage Chinese artists to go bold.
Q: How do you feel as a judge?
A: As a judge, you must have a fair and equitable position, if you can't hide from money and people's feelings, then the position will definitely deviate. There are two aspects to pay attention to, be a good person: maintain the fairness and justice of the award through the rules; do good: let professional people make professional judgments.
-END-
Art has depth Welcome to download [Art Headline APP]
Stay up-to-date with art dynamics and get artistic inspiration
☟☟☟
For business cooperation, please contact: [email protected]