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:
“In this great association we know no North, no South, no East, no West. This has been our pride for all these years. We have no political party. We never have inquired what anybody’s religion is. All we ever have asked is simply, “Do you believe in perfect equality for women?” This is the one article in our creed.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“There is no mystery in a looking glass until someone looks into it. Then, though it remains the same glass, it presents a different face to each man who holds it in front of him. The same is true of a work of art. It has no proper existence as art until someone is reflected in it—and no two will ever be reflected in the same way. However much we all see in common in such a work, at the center we behold a fragment of our own soul, and the greater the art the greater the fragment.”
—Harold C. Goddard (1878–1950)
“I wish glib and indiscriminate critics of industrialists had some conception of the problems that have to be met by factory management.... General condemnation of employers is a favorite indoor sport of the uninformed intelligentsia who assume the role of lance- bearers for labor.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)