International Association of Art Critics

The International Association of Art Critics (AICA-Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art) was founded in 1950 to revitalize critical discourse, which suffered under Fascism during World War II. AICA was initially affiliated with UNESCO as a non-governmental organization. Currently, there are seventy-two member nations representing more than 4,000 art critics.

The main objectives of AICA are:
• to promote the critical disciplines in the field of visual arts
• to ensure their having sound methodological and ethical bases
• to protect the ethical and professional interests of art critics by defending the rights of all members equally
• to ensure permanent communication among its members by encouraging international meetings
• to facilitate and improve information and international exchanges in the field of visual arts
• to contribute to the reciproca knowledge and closer understanding of differing cultures
• to provide collaboration with developing countries.

Famous quotes containing the words association, art and/or critics:

    “The spiritual kinship between Lincoln and Whitman was founded upon their Americanism, their essential Westernism. Whitman had grown up without much formal education; Lincoln had scarcely any education. One had become the notable poet of the day; one the orator of the Gettsyburg Address. It was inevitable that Whitman as a poet should turn with a feeling of kinship to Lincoln, and even without any association or contact feel that Lincoln was his.”
    —Edgar Lee Masters (1869–1950)

    “To save the theatre, the theatre must be destroyed, the actors and actresses must all die of the plague. They poison the air, they make art impossible. It is not drama that they play, but pieces for the theatre. We should return to the Greeks, play in the open air: the drama dies of stalls and boxes and evening dress, and people who come to digest their dinner.”
    —Eleonora Duse (1858–1924)

    “Some have at first for wits, then poets passed,
    Turned critics next, and proved plain fools at last.”
    —Alexander Pope (1688–1744)