The Vera List Center for Art and Politics is pleased to announce Macushla Robinson, a Masters of Liberal Studies student at The New School for Social Research as the winner of the 2015-2016 Vera List New School Art Collection Writing Award. This year’s competition called for responses to three site-specific artworks: For Comrades and Lovers by Glenn Ligon, Alfredo Jaar’s, Searching for Africa in LIFE and Rita McBride’s Bells and Whistles, which are all located throughout The New School’s University Center.

Macushla received her BVA in Visual Arts and a BA in Philosophy and Art Theory in her home country of Australia at the Australian National University. Here at The New School she is currently exploring the “dissident aesthetic” emerging in contemporary art of which she hopes to turn the research into either a book or a collection of essays.
A rotating panel of judges selects the winning entries—with awards ranging from $400 for first-place and $200 for second-place.

The Vera List Center has enjoyed a long history with the U.S. chapter of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) with its shared annual Distinguished Critic Lecture series, which started back in 2007. The collaboration with AICA continued this Fall with Macushla’s winning entry was edited by one of its professional critics, Lilly Wei. Lilly Wei runs the CUE Foundation’s Young Writers Workshop, a program dedicated to mentoring emerging writers and providing the opportunity to work alongside one of AICA’s established art critics.

2015-2016 JURY MEMBERS
Luis Jaramillo, Director of the School of Writing, Assistant Professor of Writing, MFA Creative Writing Program, The New School for Public Engagement
Carin Kuoni, Director/Curator, Vera List Center for Art and Politics
Rosemary O’Neill, Associate Professor of Art History and Design, History and Theory, Parsons School of Design
Silvia Rocciol, Curator, The New School Art Collection
Bianca Rogers, Vera List Center and Graduate Program in International Affairs Graduate Student Fellow
Wendy S. Walters, Associate Professor, Literary Studies, Eugene Lang College
Lilly Wei, International Association of Art Critics