Turkey and Iran share 29th Aydın Doğan Cartoon Award

BODRUM, Muğla - Doğan News Agency

1st Prize, Javad Alizadeh, Iran. The winning cartoons of this year’s Aydın Doğan International Cartoon Competition were selected from among a total of 175 works by 147 artists. DHA Photos

The winners of the 29th Aydın Doğan International Cartoon Competition were announced yesterday. The top prize was shared by a Turkish and an Iranian cartoonist.

The competition, organized by the Aydın Doğan Foundation, received 2,945 cartoons from 944 artists from 80 countries since January. A total of 175 works from 147 artists from 43 countries that went to the finals were evaluated over the weekend by a selective committee headed by U.S. artist Stan Mack, including Ercan Akyol (Turkey), Antonio Antunes (Portugal), Latif Demirci (Turkey), Selçuk Demirel (Turkey), Viktor Kudin (Ukraine), Piyale Madra (Turkey), Firoozeh Mozaffari (Iran), Tan Oral (Turkey), Ralph Steadman (Britain) and Zhu Zizun (China).

After seven hours of deliberation, Turkish artist Doğan Arslan, who lives in New Jersey and is also very interested in design and photography art, and Iranian artist Javad Alizadeh shared the competition’s first prize.

The second prize went to Serbian artist Vladimir Stankovski’s work and in third place was Polish Pawel Kuczynski.

Success Awards

The Success Awards of the 29th Aydın Doğan International Cartoon Competition went to Jose Antonio Costa (Brazil), Ludo Goderis (Belgium), Musa Gümüş (Turkey), Muhittin Köroğlu (Turkey), Aliyeh Mazaheri (Iran), Rodrigo Mineu (Brazil), Negin Naghiyeh (Iran), Sergey Ryabokon (Ukraine), Raimundo Waldez (Brazil), Cai Weidong (China) and Bert M.L. Witte (Netherlands).

One of the two winners of the first prize, Arslan, 41, thanked the sponsoring companies, “because cartoons, which are at the center of commentary art, have reached an important position in the world thanks to these influential and high-quality competitions and exhibitions. I think this kind of international cartoon organization provides a stage to criticize the problems of people and the world and to contribute to the formation of better and more humane world.”

The Aydın Doğan Foundation Executive Board Committee Chairwoman Candan Fetvacı said the cartoons honored in the competition would be displayed at the Osmanlı Tersanesi Art Gallery in Bodrum until June 14.

“This year a record number of artists and cartoons joined the competition. The number of artists and works in the competition are increasing every year, and world-renowned cartoon masters had difficulty evaluating these works. I thank all the artists who submitted their work to the competition,” said Fetvacı.

The award ceremony for the competition will be held on Oct. 29 in Istanbul. The winners of the first prize will be given $8,000 and the winners of the second and third prizes will be given $5,000 and $3,000 respectively. Also, $500 will be given to the winners of the Success Awards.