Winners pick up awards in Doğan cartoon contest

ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

The winners of the first prize, Turkey’s Doğan Arslan (R) and Iran’s Javad Alizadeh (L), pose with Culure Minister Ertuğrul Günay. DHA photo

Turkey’s Doğan Arslan and Iran’s Javad Alizadeh were the big winners Oct. 9 at the 29th Aydın Doğan Cartoon Competition, picking up $8,000 each at a ceremony held at Istanbul’s Hilton Convention Center.

Arslan and Alizadeh beat out Serbia’s Vladimir Stankovski and Poland’s Pawel Kuczynski, who finished second and third, respectively, to win the biggest award at the annual event, which started with 2,945 works from 944 cartoonists from 80 countries.

Stankovski took home $5,000 as runner-up, while Kuczynski won $3,000. “The competition, which is one of the [Aydın Doğan] Foundation’s projects supporting the world of communication, will turn 30 next year,” Candan Fetvacı, the foundation’s executive board director, said in the ceremony’s opening speech.

“This shows us that our competition has an important place in the world. Also, the exhibition opened at the Flint Institute of Arts [FIA] in Michigan with the title ‘Drawing Together: International Cartoons.’ It will remain open until the end of the year. This is our third big exhibition in the U.S. New Yorker magazine cartoon editor Bob Mankoff congratulated our foundation. Our competition is known in the international arena, and it makes us proud,” she said.

Exhibitions in the US
The foundation’s events abroad are not just limited to the United States, Fetvacı said. “As well as the United Nations’ exhibition halls, our cartoons have been displayed in the halls of the European Parliament and in Japan, China, Romania, Pakistan, Greece, Moldova and Turkish Cyprus. We also have 70,000 scanned copies of cartoons in our archives and have established a web museum. Now, we are together with the world on the web.”

Cartoons hold up a mirror to society, she said. “The increase in the number of participants every year shows us that we have reached out goal. Famous cartoonists from various countries are jury members of this competition. The event turns into a cartoon feast with workshops, trips and jury meetings.”

‘A universal language’
Culture and Tourism Minister Ertuğrul Günay, who also attended the ceremony, said cartoons displayed a universal language in the printed media. “In order to understand a column, you need to speak its language. But cartoons have a universal language. This year, the competition was [organized] around the theme of the Arab Spring. The winners of the competition are interesting works.”

The cartoons were evaluated by a committee that was headed by U.S. artist Stan Mack and included 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).

In addition to the four winners, 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) each picked up one of the contest’s success awards and a cash prize of $500.