International Association of Art Critics

Toward the end of the 1940s, when many schools and diverse movements in art were flourishing, art critics, art historians and art educators, as well as curators from museums of modern art gathered at two congresses at UNESCO Headquarters (1948 and 1949). Their aim was to compare their point of views concerning the vocation of art criticism, to analyse their responsibility in regard to artists and public, and to outline the particular nature of their contributions in relation to developments in the fields of art history. Convening from around the world, they included among them the most prestigious names of the times.

Following those two international congresses at UNESCO, the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) was founded in 1950 and was admitted in 1951 to the rank of NGO. AICA comprises various experts anxious to develop international co-operation in the fields of artistic creation, dissemination and cultural development.

AICA brings together some 5,000 art professionals from some 95 countries all over the world, organised into 63 National Sections and an Open Section. AICA is particularly well represented in all parts of Europe, Australia, North and South America and the Caribbean. It has very active National Sections in Middle Eastern and Asian countries (Israel, Singapore, Japan, Hong-Kong, Pakistan, South Korea) and a number of African Sections have been formed in recent years. In the past fifteen to twenty five years, Annual Congresses have been held in places as far apart as the Caribbean, Hong-Kong, Ljubljana, Macao and Tokyo, as well as in Europe.