Given Leonardo’s multi-faceted personality as a painter, sculptor, thinker, writer, innovator, mathematician and philosopher, his birthday was seen as a perfect choice for a day to commemorate the role of art in the contemporary world, with its complex artistic, social and political layers.
All the national committees of the IAA will be contributing to World Art Day through festivities, exhibitions, panel discussions, posters, banners and parties, emphasizing the role of art in achieving peace and freedom. From Mexico to Japan, from France to Sweden, from Slovakia to South Africa, from Cyprus to Venezuela, countries on all continents are preparing to celebrate World Art Day in different ways.
The IAA designated April 15 as World Art Day with the intention that it will be a day for all artists and art lovers in the world to celebrate, not only members of IAA. The idea is to create a day to emphasize the importance of art in the lives of everyone, of all ages and races. Every gallery, museum, art center, university and artist are free to organize their own activities.
The President of IAA World, Mexican Rosa Maria Burillo Velasco said, “Art is the most genuine expression of the human soul, shaped in images words, sounds and movements enduring reflections that describe us the story of humanity. World Art Day will permit to all the artists and art lovers of the world, to feel the power and the preciousness of art simultaneously and let all of us breathe its importance for all nations of the World.”
International Association of Art
The International Association of Art, IAA/AIAP, is an NGO (a non-governmental organization) working in partnership with Unesco, with the consultative status, comprising artists belonging essentially to the fields of painting, sculpture, printmakers and artists practising other forms of creative work in the visual arts.
The objectives of the Association are to stimulate international cooperation among the artists of all countries, nations or peoples, and to improve the economic and social position of artists at the national and international levels, as well as to defend their material and moral rights.
The IAA/AIAP structure looks like UNESCO. It allows and facilitates all kind of working condition of arts and professionnal artists comparison through meetings, seminars and exhibitions into a peacefull ideal, tolerance and sharing attitude. IAA/AIAP discuss and prepares proposals transferred to members's states government by UNESCO.