Art & design community honored at Beijing awards ceremony

An annual list was released on Saturday to name China’s most influential modern artists and art galleries in 2018.

The 12th Art Power 100 and the second Design Power 100 Award Ceremony was held in Guantang Art District in Beijing on that day.

The award is considered one of the major third-party evaluation systems of modern art in China. This year, it was co-organized by Cankao Xiaoxi, a newspaper of Xinhua News Agency, and the Forbidden City Gallery, which is affiliated to the Palace Museum in Beijing.

The title of Artist of the Year was bestowed upon Mao Yan, a Nanjing-based artist known for his portraits, while the Red Brick Art Museum in Beijing was awarded the Art Gallery of the Year. China Guardian Auctions was listed as the Auction House of the Year.

The other winners included Fan Di’an, the head of Central Academy of Fine Arts, who was named Art Educator of the Year, and the Nation’s Greatest Treasures, a TV variety show covering highlighted collections in major Chinese museums, was honored as the best promoter of art.

In the design category, a project led by the University of Hong Kong to renovate a village damaged by 2008’s devastating earthquake in Sichuan province was hailed as the best rural revitalization program. The award for urban revitalization was given to Beijing Fun, a commercial area in Bejing’s Qianmen district.

A symposium on fine art, along with exhibitions displaying young artists’ work, was also held in Beijing to run alongside the award ceremony.