All talk, and action too
The Multitude Foundation is giving artistsin Asia a roving art prize, writes Kate Whitehead
It's Sunday afternoon in Beijing and a gaggle of art lovers and curators are outside the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art (UCCA), engaged in a heated debate. It's the last coffee break of the day and they know they haven't got long - they deliver their views with passion. "It was great, you couldn't have bought that moment," says Bill Condon, founder and chairman of the Multitude Art Foundation, his eyes lighting up with the memory. "To see that energy in the discussion - the whole ethos of what we're trying to do is to create that kind of energy."
That heated discussion outside the mainland's bastion of modern art came at the end of the inaugural Multitude Foundation Art Prize weekend last month. Five Asian artists each received US$20,000 and the opportunity to exhibit at UCCA. Condon established the prize with Colin Chinnery, the UCCA's first director and an artist himself.
"The idea of an art prize really appealed to me. Not as a glamour prize, but as something with a bit more substance," Condon says. "We came up with the idea of … [a] prize that moved around Asia every year, but that was underpinned by a … discourse programme which would bring together contemporary thinkers to look at the relevance of art and culture in a massively changing geopolitical environment and to create these dialogues in different regions of Asia."
The congenial Irishman says artists are the focus of the prize and it's structured around supporting them. "The heroes are the artists and they should be treated in that manner. We are not asking them to donate work. We'd really like them to come, but it's not a prerequisite."
Condon, who has made Hong Kong his home since 2001, isn't an artist himself but enjoys the buzz of working alongside creative people. He spent his early career in advertising in London as an account manager at Davidson Pearce (the agency behind the PG Tips chimps) and Lowe Howard-Spink (that famously got Dudley Moore for the Tesco campaign).
I enjoy the build-up to setting up something - you are constantly learning, you are constantly pushing boundaries, there's no room for complacency
After 12 years in the ad world, he decided it was time for change and moved with his English wife to Beijing. After a two-year stint in the capital, consulting for a Japanese publishing firm and setting up an education website, they relocated to Hong Kong. An entrepreneur at heart, he took to the city and now considers it home - his two children were born here.