Announcing the Hudgens Prize Visual Arts Competition

The Jacqueline Casey Hudgens Center for the Arts is very pleased to announce The Hudgens Prize visual arts competition and juried show. Open to any artist living as a full time resident in the state of Georgia, aged 18 and up, the competition will bestow a $50,000 cash award and an invitation for a solo exhibit upon one selected artist.

The winning artist will be announced at an Award Celebration held in conjunction with the final juried show, which will run from November of 2010 until February, 2011.

The Hudgens Prize represents one of the largest art awards given in the nation. It is an unprecedented opportunity for an artist in Georgia to receive both the large cash prize and the opportunity for a solo exhibit, and the juried exhibit in November will provide great statewide exposure for all of the finalists.

"We are extremely excited to be able to offer such an important award competition to the artists of Georgia. Particularly in times of economic challenge, it is vital that we support the arts and artists, or we lose something that is literally irreplaceable in our culture and our state," said Teresa Osborn, Interim Executive Director at The Hudgens.

The Prize is sponsored by a private foundation that prefers to remain anonymous. "They were strongly interested in supporting the arts on a statewide basis, and also wanted to help increase the visibility and prestige of The Hudgens in the state," said Stan Hall, Chairman of the Board at The Hudgens.

"We are greatly honored that the foundation chose us to be the venue and facilitators for this exciting competition," stated Hall.

"It is our hope that by bringing more attention to The Hudgens, this competition will also result in more support from the community and the state, particularly in this current, very challenging, economic environment," added Osborn.

The Juror Panel for the competition consists of David Kiehl, Curator of Prints at The Whitney Museum of American Art; Sylvie Fortin, Editor-in-Chief of ART PAPERS Magazine; and Eungie Joo, Keith Haring Director and Curator of Exhibitions and Public Programs at the New Museum in New York.

"We are very pleased with the caliber of art professionals we have assembled to serve on the jury panel for The Hudgens Prize. We feel that this trio will serve us well in making some difficult decisions," states Angela Nichols, Director of Programs and Education at The Hudgens. "They are all well known nationally and internationally in the arts and we're thrilled to have such a well respected and impressive group of jurors."

Kiehl has organized many Whitney exhibitions, including: Memorials of War (2004); Political Nature (2004-05); Ellen Gallagher: DeLuxe (2005); and Two Years (2007-08). He was responsible for the exhibition installations of The Art of Richard Tuttle (2005-06), Kiki Smith: A Gathering (2006-07), and Jenny Holzer: Protect Protect (2009). Kiehl also serves on the editorial board of Print Quarterly; the Board of Directors for Printed Matter; and the advisory committee for the LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies at Columbia University.

Fortin is an independent curator, art historian, critic and editor who has worked internationally since 1991. She has been Curator of Contemporary Art at the Ottawa Art Gallery, Program Coordinator at la chambre blanche (Quebec), and a long-term collaborator with OBORO. Her critical essays have been published in Canadian, American and European catalogues, and her reviews have appeared in many periodicals including Art Press, C Magazine, Espace, Fuse (of which she is a contributing editor), NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art and Parachute. Fortin was named Lexus Leader of the Arts in December 2007.

Joo spearheads the New Museum's unique educational and public programs, including the pioneering 'Museum as Hub,' a curatorial/education hybrid with five international partner organizations. She was previously Director and Curator at the Gallery at REDCAT, Los Angeles. This year, Joo was commissioner for the Korean Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale, where she presented "Condensation: Haegue Yang." She recently organized Nikhil Chopra's performance and exhibition "Yog Raj Chitrikar: Memory Drawing IX," which is on
view at the New Museum through February 14.

Visual artwork of any medium will be considered for the Competition, but it must have been completed within the last two years and meet certain size and weight criteria. The entry fee is just $30 for members of The Hudgens and $50 for non-members (includes one Artist level membership), and entitles each artist to submit up to five entries. Entries are to be submitted via digital images burned onto a CD and mailed to The Hudgens.

The jury will select between five to ten artists to participate in the Finalist's Exhibition, which will run from November 30, 2010 through February 19, 2011. The $50,000 prize winner will be announced at an Award Celebration on November 30, and will have a solo exhibition at The Hudgens Center in December 2011.

Deadline for entry for the competition is June 4, 2010. The Hudgens Prize prospectus contains further details about the competition and information on how to enter, and is available on The Hudgens' website at www.thehudgens.org.

The Hudgens Center currently has three exhibits on view until May 15, 2010, including Herbert Creecy, featuring one of Georgia's most well-known abstract expressionist painters; Georgia Artists from the Permanent Collection and Tannery Row: Selected Works, which highlight some of the wonderful talent from the Buford artists' colony, Tannery Row, in another collection from Georgia-based artists.

The simultaneous presentation of these three exhibits represents a change in the focus and mission of The Hudgens. The center is committed to presenting coordinated exhibits that carry a theme throughout the facility, as these do in featuring Georgia artists, and will present three to four sets of similarly integrated exhibits per year.

The Jacqueline Casey Hudgens Center for the Arts is located at 6400 Sugarloaf Parkway, Bldg 300 in Duluth, at the end of the Gwinnett Center complex. The parking lot is located off of Satellite Boulevard, near the intersection of Satellite & Sugarloaf Parkway, and the main entrance is under the giant robot.

For more information about events and happenings at The Hudgens, please call 770-623-6002 or sign up to receive the monthly newsletter at www.thehudgens.org.