The Standard Bank Young Artist Awards were started in 1981 by the National Arts Festival to recognise emerging, relatively young South African artists who have demonstrated exceptional ability in their chosen field. These prestigious awards are presented annually to deserving artists in three to four arts disciplines, affording them national exposure and acclaim. Winning artists, as part of their award, are given the opportunity to perform, direct or exhibit on the National Arts Festival’s main programme. Standard Bank became the title sponsor of the awards in 1984 and have presented Young Artist Awards in all the major arts disciplines, as well as posthumous and special recognition awards.
Some 89 artists have been recipients of the awards since their inception in 1981. Previous winners include the likes of Paul Slabolepszy (1983), Andrew Buckland (1986), William Kentridge (1987), Johnny Clegg (1989), Darryl Roodt (1991), Sibongile Khumalo (1993), Vincent Mantsoe (1996), Bongani Ndodana-Breen (1998), Gregory Maqoma (2002), Yael Farber (2003) and many more.
Famous quotes containing the words standard, bank, young, artist and/or award:
“As in political revolutions, so in paradigm choice—there is no standard higher than the assent of the relevant community. To discover how scientific revolutions are effected, we shall therefore have to examine not only the impact of nature and of logic, but also the techniques of persuasive argumentation effective within the quite special groups that constitute the community of scientists.”
—Thomas S. Kuhn (b. 1922)
“Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak.... They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“The young ... look into visages dull-eyed, long-toothed, wattle-necked, and chop-fallen, something they have never been and which they cannot imagine ever being.... If it occurs to a young person, looking at us, that this is the direction in which he himself travels, how can he forgive, let alone bear the sight of, us, who constantly bring him the bad news of our own faces, bitter signposts pointing to his own destination?”
—Jessamyn West (1902–1984)
“The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)
“The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)