The Cultural Affairs Ministry and BSA are jointly organising the largest fine arts festival of Asia at the National Art Gallery of the academy.
Cultural Affairs Minister Asaduzzaman Noor will be present as a special guest while Professor Emeritus of the Tokyo University of Arts Tetsuya Noda will also participate in the opening ceremony with Cultural Affairs Secretary M Nasir Uddin Ahmed in the chair.
BSA Director General Liaquat Ali Lucky will deliver the welcome speech.
There will be two and three-dimensional artworks like painting, prints, photography, sculpture, installation, performance art and new media art at the Asian Art Biennale Bangladesh.
A total of 583 artworks by 465 artists from 68 countries will be put on display at the exhibition which will be open to all from 11 am to 8 pm every day.
A total of 68 countries, including Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Afghanistan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, the USA, Mongolia, Peru, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Egypt, Kenya, Turkey, Ukraine, Iran, Russia and Germany, are participating in the event.
Earlier, a jury panel comprising of five members with two from Bangladesh and one each from France, India and Spain was formed to judge the displayed artworks in the 18th Asian Art Biennale Bangladesh as well as selected best artworks for three grand prizes and six honourable mention prizes.
Jury Board President prominent artist Shahabuddin will announce the names of winners at the inaugural session and later awards will be given to winners.
Each of these awards will be accompanied by a medal and cash prize of Tk 5 lakh and Tk 3 lakh for two categories of prizes respectively.
Four observers -- Artist Jogen Chowdhury from India, Professor Tetsuya Noda from Japan, Dr Marek Bartelik from Poland and Deborah Frizzell from the USA -- will attend the festival.
The exhibition is the most prestigious and biggest art festival of Bangladesh as well as the oldest international art biennale event in Asia. From the beginning to 2014, the event was the platform only for artists of the Asian and Pacific region.
In 2017, the organising committee decided to expand its glory throughout the world. As a result, artists from 55 countries from around the world had participated in the 17th edition.
And in this year, participating countries’ number rose to 68.