Booklet PDF

ART PRIZE
Contents
FOREWORD
RECIPIENTS
Abbas Akhavan, Study for a Hanging Garden
Kamrooz Aram, Ancient Through Modern: A Collection of Uncertain Objects, Part 1
Bouchra Khalili, Garden Conversation
Basim Magdy, The Dent
Anup Mathew Thomas, Nurses
Curator: Nada Raza
Vartan Avakian, A Very Short History of Tall Men
Iman Issa, Common Elements
Huma Mulji, The Miraculous Lives of This and That
Hrair Sarkissian, Background
Rayyane Tabet, FIRE/CAST/DRAW
Curator: Murtaza Vali
Taysir Batniji, To My Brother
Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, A Letter Can Always Reach its Destination
Wael Shawky, A Glimpse of Clean History
Risham Syed, The Seven Seas
Raed Yassin, China
Curator: Nat Muller
Hamra Abbas, Woman in Black
Jananne Al-Ani, Shadow Sites II
Shezad Dawood, New Dream Machine Project
Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Flying Carpets
Timo Nasseri, Gon
Curator: Sharmini Pereira
Kader Attia, History of a Myth: The Small Dome of the Rock, with Curator Laurie Ann
Farrell
Hala Elkoussy, Myths and Legends Room: The Mural, with Curator Jelle Bouwhuis
Marwan Sahmarani, The Feast of the Damned, with Curator Mahita El Bacha
Kutlug Ataman, Strange Space, with Curator Cristiana Perrella
Zoulikha Bouabdellah, Walk on the Sky. Pisces, with Curator Carol Solomon
Nazgol Ansarinia, Rhyme and Reason, with Curator Leyla Fakhr
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Management
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EXHIBITION VENUES
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THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Foreword
The Abraaj Group Art Prize has been the cornerstone of our arts patronage
programme and is now in its sixth edition with twenty six commissioned works part
of The Abraaj Group Collection. The prize has recognised twenty six artists and ten
curators. The aim of the prize has always been to showcase and empower potential
and reflects our wider philosophy of nurturing and cultivating the cultural climate
across the regions we operate in. The Abraaj Group Art Prize endows talented artists
from the vibrant MENASA (Middle East, North Africa and South Asia) region with the
resources to realize ambitious projects through intense research, travel and production
thereby advancing their practice to a new level.
The prize is globally unique as artists are invited to submit proposals for new art
projects, rather than completed works of art or past exhibitions. Once chosen by
the selection committee, the winning artists have the opportunity to work with an
internationally renowned curator. This collaboration allows the artists to develop their
diverse and individual creative vision, whilst the curator highlights the common theme
running through their works in an exhibition at Art Dubai.
Each year the prizes are inaugurated and presented at Art Dubai, the leading
contemporary art fair in the region, which gives the artists a global platform to
showcase their works and focuses international attention on the MENASA region.
We have had more than 1500 completed applications in the six years since the
inception of The Abraaj Group Art Prize. Each one of those applications has been
supported by a recognised nominator familiar with the artist’s practice, as well as the
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necessary criteria. To date we have had winners from
Iran, Turkey, Algeria, Lebanon, Tunisia, Egypt, Iraq,
Palestine, Pakistan and India.
As the collection has grown, so too have the
opportunities for the winning artists. They are
increasingly included in major international exhibitions
and their winning works are borrowed by the world’s
leading institutions as well as by global biennials. To date
the artworks have been exhibited across several venues
in the Gulf, Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and the USA.
In addition, new works by the artists have been acquired
by important collections such as the Centre Pompidou,
Paris; the Museum of Modern Art, New York and Tate,
London.
I welcome you to learn more about the artworks which
form our collection and to join us at Art Dubai 2015 to
view the new edition of works.
Frederic Sicre
Managing Director, The Abraaj Group
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THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Recipients
Recipients
2009 2010 2011
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2012 2013 2014
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Recipients 2014
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Abbas Akhavan (b. 1977, Tehran)
Study for a Hanging Garden
Cast bronze, cotton fabric, dimensions variable
Study for a Hanging Garden is an act of commemoration, and also an attempt to archive plants
belonging to regions around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the title hinting at the legendary
gardens of Babylon. Plant taxonomy thrived as a scientific discipline in colonial times, when 19th
century researchers gained access to new areas and organised expeditions around the world
gathering species, and thereby becoming the gatekeepers of scientific knowledge. Akhavan has
traced botanical species such as those held at London’s Kew Gardens, in particular endemic species
that grow in present-day Iraq, such as Iris barnumae, Astragalus lobophorus and Campanula
acutiloba. Damage to their habitat, firstly by the destruction of salt marshes and then by the effects
of war, has made tracing them a difficult task.
Rooted in the funerary tradition of commemorating the dead, monuments often record public
figures or landmark historical events. They demonstrate strength and attempt to stimulate forms
of nationalist or collective memory despite the inevitability of shifts in power. Sculpted from
photographic documentation and cast in bronze, these flowers, stems, leaves and roots are
displayed in groupings which rest on the ground, resisting the verticality and singularity of traditional
monuments. Enlarged to a human scale, they are displayed on simple white sheets, as if captured
while being transported.
Abbas Akhavan’s practice ranges from site-specific
ephemeral installations to drawing, video and
performance. The domestic sphere, as a forked space
between hospitality and hostility, has been an ongoing
area of research in Akhavan’s work. More recent
works have shifted focus, wandering onto spaces just
outside the home - the garden, the backyard, and other
domesticated landscapes. Recent exhibitions include:
‘Variations on a Garden’, Galerie Mana, Istanbul (2013);
‘Study for a Garden’, Delfina Foundation, London
(2012); ‘Tactics for Here & Now’, Bucharest Biennale,
Bucharest (2012); ‘Tools for Conviviality’ Power Plant,
Toronto (2012); ‘Beacon’, Darling Foundry, Montreal
(2012); ‘Phantomhead’, Performa 11, New York (2011);
‘Seeing is Believing’, KW Institute for Contemporary Art,
Berlin (2011). Akhavan was the recipient of Kunstpreis
Berlin, 2012. He lives and works in Toronto and is
represented by the Third Line, Dubai/UAE.
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Recipients 2014
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Kamrooz Aram (b. 1978, Shiraz)
Ancient Through Modern: A Collection of Uncertain Objects, Part 1
Mixed media, dimensions variable (approximately 244 x 434 x 56 cm)
Ancient Through Modern: A Collection of Uncertain Objects, Part 1 is a wall installation consisting
of painting, ceramics and collage arranged to echo the displays in popular museums such as the
Louvre in Paris, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, or the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York. Taking cultural nostalgia as its subject, this work investigates how museums, and the
objects treasured within them, serve a longing for mythical pasts and support claims of origin.
Simultaneously, the aesthetic regime of Modernism is privileged, considered the apex of the visual
art of our time. Kamrooz Aram blurs the distance between ancient and modern, manufactured and
made, revealing the persistence of archetypal forms and the irrationality of cultural value as it is
ascribed to material objects.
Antiques and antiquities are placed in visual unity with replicas of such objects, commissioned
from skilled makers such as the Iznik Foundation in Turkey, or bought from museum shops. A bowl
from Kashan, for example, is displayed in a similar manner to a mid-century modern Danish piece
designed by Marianne Starck, from her Persia Glaze series; a glaze with a crackling effect used in
combination with a blue glaze that evokes the cobalt blues of Persian ceramics. In the backdrop,
paintings and framed paper collage works reference stark Suprematist forms and the aesthetic
conventions of high Modernism.
Kamrooz Aram received his MFA from Columbia
University in 2003. Recent solo and two-person
exhibitions include Kamrooz Aram/Julie Weitz
at The Suburban, Chicago, Illinois (2013); Brute
Ornament: Kamrooz Aram and Seher Shah, curated
by Murtaza Vali, at Green Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE
(2012); Negotiations at Perry Rubenstein Gallery,
New York, New York (2011); Generation After
Generation, Revolution after Revelation at LAXART,
Los Angeles, California (2010) and Kamrooz Aram:
Realms and Reveries at the Massachusetts Museum of
Contemporary Art, North Adams, Massachusetts (2006).
He has shown in numerous group exhibitions including
roundabout, City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand
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(2010); the Busan Biennale (2006); P.S.1/MoMA’s
Greater New York 2005; and the Prague Biennale I
(2003). Aram has been awarded grants from the New
York Foundation for the Arts (2004) and the Jacob
K. Javits Fellowship Program (2001-2003). His work
has been widely featured and reviewed in publications
such as The New York Times, Art in America, Artforum.
com, ArtAsiaPacific, The New Yorker, The National and
Bidoun. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Kamrooz
Aram is represented by Green Art Gallery, Dubai.
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Recipients 2014
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Bouchra Khalili (b. 1975, Casablanca)
Garden Conversation
Digital film, colour, sound, 16 min 22 sec
Garden Conversation restages a mythical encounter between two renegade heroes, seeking
their wisdom for our time. In January 1959, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara met the exiled hero of the Rif
War (1921-1926), Abdelkarim Al Khattabi, at the Moroccan Embassy in Cairo. An anti-colonialist,
Khattabi resisted two armies, the French and Spanish, and his movement pioneered modern guerilla
techniques that inspired many leaders, including Guevara and Ho Chi Minh.
Bouchra Khalili’s film blurs historic fact and poetic fiction to conjecture what the ghosts of Guevara
and Khattabi might speak of were they to meet today. Their conversation is scripted from the
writings of Khattabi and Guevara regarding struggle, its methodology and its purpose. A young man
and woman who speak Moroccan Arabic and Iraqi Arabic - yet fully understand each other - embody
their ghosts. They meet in one of the oldest surviving colonial possessions in the world - Melilla, in
the Moroccan Rif - where Khattabi lived, was imprisoned, and became a revolutionary.
The film was shot on location in Los Pinos de Rostrogordo, a park that is part forest and part garden,
surrounded by the sea. It overlooks the border fence that was built to prevent north and subSaharan immigrants from reaching Europe and that serves to isolate Melilla as a Spanish territory
from its Moroccan context.
Moroccan-French artist Bouchra Khalili was born in
Casablanca. She later studied Cinema and Visual Arts
in Paris. Her work in video, photography and prints,
articulates documentary practice and conceptual
approach to investigate methodologies and discourses
of resistance as elaborated by members of minorities.
Khalili’s work has been shown internationally, as recently
at “The Encyclopedic Palace”, 55th Venice Biennale
(2013) ; “Intense Proximity’’, Palais de Tokyo (Paris,
2012); The 18th Biennale of Sydney (2012); “Mapping
Subjectivity”, MoMA (New York, 2011) ; The 10th
Sharjah Biennial (2011); among others. Recent solo
shows and screenings include “Wet Feet and More”
at DAAD Galerie, Berlin (2013) ; “The Seaman” at
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Freedman Gallery, Albright College (2013) ; Wet Feet/Dry
Feet at Tarragona Art Center, Spain (2012), Deutsche
Kinemathek in Berlin, and Deutsches Film Institut in
Frankfurt, among others. Khalili has received numerous
awards as “DAAD Artist-in-Berlin” (2012) ; “The Vera
List Center Fellowship” (The New School, New York,
2011-2013) ; and CulturesFrance Award in 2010. In
2012-2013, she was commissioned by The Perez
Miami Art Museum to produce an original artwork for its
inauguration in December 2013. Bouchra Khalili lives in
Berlin. She’s represented by Galerie Polaris (Paris), and
galerieofmarseille (Marseilles).
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Recipients 2014
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Basim Magdy (b. 1977, Cairo)
The Dent
Super 16mm film transferred to full HD, colour, sound, 19 min
Starting with shiny rooftops and ending with the seemingly insignificant demise of the last circus
elephant of its kind, The Dent weaves together loosely linked events and irrational occurrences to
reflect upon collective failure and hopefulness. An anonymous little town dreams of international
recognition, even as it becomes obvious that its efforts are misguided. The spectre of defeat may
only be countered by maintaining a shared delusion, which keeps growing even as its residents
continue to labour and make sacrifices.
Basim Magdy’s moving image work layers film footage and text to produce a surrealistic visual
essay, balancing the bleakness of contemporary conditions with sensitive humour. Shot between
Paris, New York, Brussels, Quebec, Basel, Madeira, Prague and Venice, among other locations, the
scenes are lent an aura similar to that of early cinema by the familiar grain and saturated tones of
16mm film, a medium that the artist favours. Magdy’s film draws from life, capturing absurd details
and everyday beauty, seeking the uncanny within man-made environments. Ambient sound and
music combine with text authored by the artist, deliberately composed to create a hypnotic sensory
experience, making implausible events seem briefly possible.
Born in 1977 in Cairo, Egypt, Magdy currently lives and
works between Basel and Cairo. His works span various
mediums including painting, installation, and video.
Recent works attempt to confound linear narratives,
evoking confusion, absurdity, fragmentation, as well
as a persistent sense of poetic failure. Selected recent
exhibitions include Sharjah Biennial 11, Sharjah; The
Future Generation Art Prize@Venice 2013 - An official
Collateral Event of the 55th Venice Biennale (2013); La
Triennale, Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Transmediale, Haus
der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2012); 1st Time Machine
Biennale of Contemporary Art. D-O ARK Underground,
Konjic; An Exchange with Sol LeWitt - Massachusetts
Museum of Contemporary Art - MASS MoCA, North
Adams; and Weltraum. Die Kunst und ein Traum Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2011). In 2013 his work will
appear in the 13th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul; and
Dissident Futures, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San
Francisco, among others.
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Recipients 2014
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Anup Mathew Thomas (b. 1977, Kochi)
Nurses
C-print, Diasec, 48 photographs, 60 x 80 cm each
Nurses is a group of portraits capturing women of Keralan origin employed in hospitals and care
facilities around the world. Anup Mathew Thomas works primarily with the photograph and is
interested in the slippages between documentary and artistic practice, frequently deploying carefully
staged portraiture. Nurses are the single largest group of professional female migrants from Kerala,
where the economy is largely dependent on foreign remittances. Through networks of friendship and
filiation, Thomas located women from the nursing profession willing to be included in this typological
project.
Each subject was asked to pose in her professional uniform in an outdoor setting close to her
place of work. Marking the dislocation from Kerala, the isolated figure is placed centrally within the
adoptive habitat, which ranges from forests in Europe and hills in North America to deserts in the
Middle East. Displayed in a grid, the images merge to form a patchwork background from which
the individuals emerge, often smiling, confidently looking directly at the camera. Transplanted onto
new locations, they come together as a visual record of the possible variations within contemporary
migratory patterns. The photographs are accompanied by an index, a publication which provides
individual biographical details: names, professional background and current location.
Anup Mathew Thomas is a visual artist living and
working in Bangalore. Predominantly using photography
as a medium, his work often engages ostensibly local
narratives. His recent participation in group exhibitions
include Kochi Muziris Biennale, Kochi; The Matter
Within, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco;
Generation in Transition, Zacheta National Gallery of
Art, Warsaw; The Self and other, La Virreina Centre de
la Imatge, Barcelona; and Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie,
Arnolfini, Bristol. Solo exhibitions include shows at
Gasworks gallery, London and Contemporary Image
Collective, Cairo. Anup Mathew Thomas is represented
by GALLERYSKE, Bangalore
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Curator 2014
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Curator: Nada Raza
Nada Raza is from Karachi, currently based at Tate
Modern in London where she is Assistant Curator
focusing on South Asia. Raza holds an MA in Critical
Writing and Curatorial Practice from the Chelsea
College of Art and has previously worked with Iniva and
Green Cardamom in London where she contributed to
curatorial projects including Lines of Control; (Herbert
F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University 2012)and
Social Fabric(Iniva, 2012). She has lived and worked
independently in the UAE, where she maintains strong
links. She writes regularly for regional and international
publications.
Speaking of her appointment, Raza commented: The
Abraaj Group Art Prize is a unique platform for emerging
artists from the region, allowing complex and ambitious
projects to be realized with critical support from a
curator. I look forward to engaging with each selected
artist in the process of articulating conceptual ideas
through to the production of compelling works of art,
bringing them to regional and international audiences.
Detail, Kamrooz Aram, Ancient Through Modern:
A Collection of Uncertain Objects, Part 1, Mixed
media, dimensions variable (approximately 244 x
434 x 56 cm)
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Recipients 2013
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Vartan Avakian (b. 1977, Byblos)
A Very Short History of Tall Men
Gold and synthetic glass, dimensions variable
A Very Short History of Tall Men commemorates the forgotten leaders of failed coups d’état.
Reconstituted from the minimal archival traces they left behind, these almost important figures
are presented in a form proper for a commemoration of power: a statue of the man, standing tall,
proud and triumphant. However, though these statues are cast in gold and are photographically
precise, they measure in at a diminutive five centimetres; their toy soldier-like stature indexes both
the men’s failed attempts to seize power and their subsequent near erasure from historical record.
Entombed in clear acrylic spheres they float like apparitions in a crystal ball doomed to forever roll,
head over heel, here and there. These ambiguous objects are simultaneously counter-monuments
that critique both the impulse to monumentalise and the forms it inspires, and modest monuments,
sincere commemorations of failure itself.
Vartan Avakian is a multidisciplinary artist, working with
installation, video and photography, and has exhibited
throughout the Middle East, Asia, Europe and the
US. He is a founding member of the art collective
Atfal Ahdath and lives and works in Beirut. Avakian is
represented by Kalfayan Galleries, Athens/Thessaloniki.
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Recipients 2013
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Iman Issa (b. 1979, Cairo)
Common Elements
Fifty-five text panels, fourteen framed C-prints, and five wooden sculptures on white
plinths, dimensions variable
Iman Issa works through a process of careful refinement, whereby specific information is pared
down to its essence and then re-imagined through a personal and subjective lens. Common
Elements applies this methodology to the genre of autobiography, a curiously hybrid literary mode
in which individual and collective narratives are already intertwined. Issa extracts bits of text from
five accounts by four intellectuals; decontextualised, these fragments shed their individuality and
blend into a single collective narrative of life dedicated to thought, culture and justice. Punctuating
and amplifying the text panels, the accompanying photographs and sculptures hover ambiguously,
between significant and ordinary, between memento and object. Like much of Issa’s oeuvre,
Common Elements is driven by a desire to determine familiar structures of form, language,
memory and experience where the individual intersects with and opens up into the collective.
Iman Issa lives and works between Cairo and New York.
She employs a variety of mediums including text, sound,
sculpture, photography, and video in her work, to raise
questions about the relationship between language,
history and personal cognition and articulation. She was
recently awarded the inaugural FHN MACBA Award, and
is represented by Rodeo, Istanbul.
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Recipients 2013
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Huma Mulji (b. 1970, Karachi)
The Miraculous Lives of This and That
Wooden cabinet, various objects including taxidermy animals, plastic toys and dust,
cabinet: 165.1 x 138.4 x 231 cm
The Miraculous Lives of This and That-a twenty-first century Wunderkammer, or cabinet of
curiosities-employs the whimsical and wondrous logic of acquisition, categorisation, organisation
and display of these unruly antecedents of the modern museum. A variety of ordinary and
extraordinary objects, gathered from Huma Mulji’s local milieu, fill the compartments and drawers of
a slightly larger than life wooden cabinet. Among them are taxidermy animals, porcelain imitations
of cheap plastic dolls, copper votive objects in the shape of body parts, and arrays of rotting teeth,
all metonyms of a body haunted by decay and inevitable death. Straddling the threshold between
the animate and inanimate, between use and obsolescence, these objects challenge clear-cut
distinctions between material states of being. Finally, the cabinet is an existential meditation on the
mortality of all things, both living and not, and on the very matter of life.
Huma Mulji currently lives in Lahore, and teaches at
the School of Visual Art and Design at Beaconhouse
National University. Recent exhibitions include Frieze
Art Fair, UK, Art Basel Miami and the Twelve Gates
Gallery, Philadelphia. ‘Destination Asia: Non-strict
correspondence’, Soros Center for Contemporary Art,
Almaty. In 2006: ‘256 Shades’, V.M. Gallery, Karachi and
‘Sub-Continent’, Fondazionne Sandretto Re Rauburg,
Torino. She participated at the Tasmeen Doha 2013:
Middle-East Art and Design Conference, in March 2013.
Mulji is represented by Project 88, Mumbai and Thomas
Erben Gallery, New York.
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Recipients 2013
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Hrair Sarkissian (b. 1973, Damascus)
Background
Six duratrans prints, 180 x 227 cm
Background marks the eclipse of a tradition of studio portraiture integral to the twentieth century
history and development of photography in the Middle East by documenting one of its central
artefacts: the studio backdrop. Hrair Sarkissian photographed hundreds of examples he found in
studios across six Middle Eastern cities-Alexandria, Amman, Beirut, Byblos, Cairo and Istanbulfinally selecting one from and for each one. Large-scale, backlit and hung unframed, like the
backdrops themselves, these photographs both monumentalise and eulogise their subject. Without
the distraction of a sitter in the foreground, our focus shifts to the backdrop itself, to the tools and
spaces historically used for studio portraiture. But the spaces are empty and the backdrops appear
disused, like ruins or relics of a tradition that has finally run its course, the absent sitter introducing
a melancholy that radiates from the emptiness.
Hrair Sarkissian is a photographer, living and working
between London and Amman. He has recently been
exhibited as part of the 7th Asian Pacific Triennial of
Contemporary Art, Brisbane, Ici, Ailleurs, MarseilleProvence 2013 and Encounter. The Royal Academy in the
Middle East, Cultural Village Foundation, Katara, Doha.
He is represented by Kalfayan Galleries.
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Recipients 2013
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Rayyane Tabet (b. 1983, Ashqout)
FIRE/CAST/DRAW
Five thousand hand-cast unique lead pieces and two wall texts, ink on cotton paper,
lead pieces: dimensions variable; wall text: 29 x 23 cm each
FIRE/CAST/DRAW consists of thousands of unique lead pieces, each cast by the artist by pouring
a few grams of lead shot-the equivalent weight of a single bullet-melted in a stovetop coffee pot
into a water-filled coffee cup. This modest process re-enacts a divining ritual his grandmother
performed on him in his youth. Hidden in each craggy lump is thought to be the face of the person
who may have cursed you by casting the evil eye your way. Uncannily synthesizing distinct strands
of research-art history, numismatics, superstition, and the conflict-ridden history of the Middle Eastthe installation, through Tabet’s five thousand-fold repetition of this ritual, multiplies its apotropaic
effect, extending it to the collective. Maybe, those culpable for the region’s many traumas, for the
many curses Arabs have endured, will finally be held accountable as their features manifest in the
nooks and crannies of these little nuggets.
Rayyane Tabet’s work is concerned with researching
hidden histories that are transformed and retold through
objects and installations. Recipient of the special jury
prize, Pinchuk Arts Centre, Kiev, he exhibited with the
Future Generation Art Prize, Venice Biennale, 2013.
Tabet lives and works in Beirut and is represented by
Galerie Sfeir-Semler, Hamburg/Beirut.
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Curator 2013
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Curator: Murtaza Vali
Murtaza Vali is a freelance critic and curator. A Visiting
Instructor at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, he received an
MA in Art History and Archaeology from New York
University’s Institute of Fine Arts (2004). A recipient of a
2011 Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers
Grant for Short-Form Writing, he is a Contributing Editor
for Ibraaz.org and ArtAsiaPacific and was Co-Editor of
the 2007 and 2008 ArtAsiaPacific Almanac issue. He
has also written for Artforum.com, ArtReview, Art India,
Bidoun, Harper’s Bazaar Arabia Art, Modern Painters
and NuktaArt and has penned monographic essays on
Siah Armajani, Shilpa Gupta, Emily Jacir, Reena Saini
Kallat, Laleh Khorramian and Naeem Mohaiemen. His
curatorial projects include ‘Accented’, BRIC Rotunda
Gallery, Brooklyn (2010); ‘Brute Ornament’, Green Art
Gallery, Dubai (2012). He edited Manual for Treason,
a multilingual publication commissioned by Sharjah
Biennial X, Sharjah (2011). He is a frequent public
speaker and has spoken at: Cornell University, the
Yale School of Art, Art Dubai’s Global Art Forum and
The Summit: Art and Patronage, London (2012) and
served on the Selection Jury for the 2010 Sharjah Art
Foundation Production Programme Grants. He lives and
works between Sharjah and Brooklyn.
The Abraaj Group Art Prize
2013 publication ‘extra |
ordinary’
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Recipients 2012
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Taysir Batniji (b. 1966, Gaza)
To My Brother
Hand carvings from photographs on paper
In 1985 Taysir Batniji celebrated his brother’s wedding with his family in Gaza. Two years later the
First Intifada (1987-1993) broke out, and Batniji’s brother was killed by an Israeli sniper on the
9th day of the uprising. How can personal loss be represented? Is it possible to render something
absent tangible, and materialise a memory? How can we trace the porousness between the
personal and the collective - especially in the case of Palestine - when speaking of memory and of
things lost? Batniji has etched a series of 60 inkless “drawings” on paper, based on family photos
of his brother’s wedding. These “drawings” hark back to a happier time, one of joy and family
gathering. To My Brother is a fragile and poetic work which requires an intimate relationship with
the viewer: stand too far away and the drawings appear as blank sheets of paper, stand closer and
you will be able to trace the contours of the human shapes inhabiting these drawings, the artist’s
memories, and the thin lines between an ephemeral presence and a permanent absence. Stand
closer still and you will be able to discern that Batniji has left out certain details, and emphasised
others. As the title indicates, this series is a dedication to Batniji’s late brother Mayssara and a
commemoration of his untimely death. However, this very personal history ties into a wider political
context of strife in the Middle East, and shows how personal experiences ultimately, in some way
or other, become part of a collective narrative.
Taysir Batniji, who lives between Paris and Gaza studied
art at Al-Najah University in Nablus on the West Bank
from 1985-92. In 1994 he was awarded a fellowship to
study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Bourges, France,
where in 1997 he graduated with a DNSEP (Higher
National Diploma in Plastic Expression). Since then he
has divided his time between France and Palestine,
developing an interdisciplinary practice including
drawing, painting, installation and performance often
closely related to his heritage. Since 2001 Batniji has
focused on photography and video. He has participated
in numerous international exhibitions in Europe and
beyond, in 2011: ‘Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennial)’,
Istanbul, Turkey; ‘Future of a Promise’, collateral event
of the 54th Venice Biennale, Italy; ‘Seeing is Believing’,
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany and
‘Le monde n’est pas arrive’, Galerie Eric Dupont, Paris,
France. Previous exhibitions have included: ‘This is Not
Cinema!’, Fresnoy, France (2002), ‘Contemporary Arab
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Representations’, the 50th Venice Biennale, Italy (2003),
‘Transit’, Witte de With, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
(2004), ‘The World is a safer place’, Globe Gallery,
Newcastle, UK (2005), ‘Wanderland’, Kunstmuseen,
Krefeld, Germany (2006), ‘Heterotopias’, Thessaloniki
Biennial, Greece and Sharjah Biennial, UAE (both 2007).
During the 52nd Venice Biennale Batniji was part of
‘Palestine c/o Venice’ (2009) and the following year ‘La
Biennale Cuvee’, Linz, Austria (2010). Taysir Batniji is
represented by Galerie Sfeir-Semler, Hamburg/Beirut
and Galerie Eric Dupont, Paris.
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Recipients 2012
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige (Lebanon)
A Letter Can Always Reach its Destination
Video installation
For over a decade Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige have been collecting spam and scam emails
instead of automatically relegating them to the trash as most of us do. These unsolicited emails pry
on our empathy for monetary donations or promise us easy fortunes. Originating often in countries
where corruption is rife, these emails are stories and documents rooted within specific historical
and geo-political moments. As such these narratives of swindle can be read as representations of
our time, unintentional narrations of history, told by characters which constitute a fictive presence,
but are sent by a real person. Hadjithomas & Joreige have articulated an imaginary embodiment of
these emails that clutter our inboxes on a daily basis. They have used the textual source material of
selected spam and scam as visual narratives, image representations that become pieces of fiction
by themselves, and beg the viewer’s suspension of disbelief. Voiced by non-professional actors, the
emails seem transformed into scenarios for monologues; stories which become captivating, or even
moving because they are told by what seems to be a “real” person. Nevertheless, the presence and
complex layering of technological communication is echoed in the display, where one projection
is ephemerally super-imposed upon another, creating a ghostlike sensibility where the virtual and
physical meet.
Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige are artists and
filmmakers. For the last 15 years they have focused
on the images, representations and history of their
home country, Lebanon. Together they have directed
documentaries such as Khiam 2000-2007 and El Film
el Mafkoud (The lost film), and feature films such as Al
Bayt el Zaher (1999) and A Perfect Day (2005). Their
last feature film Je veux voir (I want to see), starring
Catherine Deneuve and Rabih Mroue, premiered at
Cannes Film festival in 2008 and was awarded ‘Best
Singular Film’ by the French critics. Their films have
been enthusiastically received, won many awards in
international festivals and have enjoyed releases in many
countries. They have created numerous photographic
installations, among them: Faces, Lasting Images,
Distracted Bullets, The Circle of Confusion, Don’t walk,
War Trophies, Landscape of Khiam, A Fareway Souvenir
and the multifaceted project Wonder Beirut. Their
artwork has been shown in museums, biennials and art
centers around the world and is part of important public
34
and private collections, such as Musee d’art Moderne
de la Ville de Paris, FNAC France, Guggenheim, New
York, US, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
and the Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE. They presented
their most recent art project, Lebanese Rocket Society,
Elements for a Monument (2011) at the Sharjah Biennial
and Biennale de Lyon. They are the authors of numerous
publications as well as university lecturers in Lebanon
and France, members of the board of Metropolis
Cinema and co-founders of Abbout Productions
with Georges Schoucair. Hadjithomas is also a
board member of the Ashkal Alwan Academy, Home
Workspace. They are represented by CRG Gallery, New
York, In Situ Fabienne Leclerc, Paris and The Third Line,
Dubai and live between Beirut and Paris.
35
Recipients 2012
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Wael Shawky (b. 1971, Alexandria)
A Glimpse of Clean History
Ceramics, wood & velvet
Wael Shawky is fascinated by processes of transition and how an understanding of local systems
translates into global relations. The crusades are a prime historical example of a time in transition,
of ideological and global expansion. A Glimpse of Clean History takes as its starting point a painting
by the preeminent French painter Jean Fouquet (1420-1481), Urban II 1035-1099 preaching
the crusade at Clermont in the presence of King Philippe I 1053-1108 of France in 1095. In the
painting Pope Urban II delivers a speech, which is thought to have led to the launch of the First
Crusade one year later, in 1096. The chronicling and representation of this historical event has
followed a trajectory from historical manuscript to Fouquet’s painting. In A Glimpse of Clean History
Shawky introduces his own transformation, albeit with a critical twist: a three-dimensional object
in the form of a medieval marionette theatre with ceramic dolls. As an audience we are only privy
to the scene for a short period of time. The grand velvet drapes open mechanically revealing
the interior diorama of the marionette stage - for one minute - then close again. We are literally
allowed only a glimpse of history, a furtive glance on a scene, which we know, due to its many
manifestations over time, can never be clean. In freezing a significant historical moment, A Glimpse
of Clean History transforms the representation of history into a miniaturised theatrical event where
the viewers’ mode of consumption is mechanically controlled.
Wael Shawky studied fine art at the University of
Alexandria before receiving his M.F.A. from the
University of Pennsylvania in 2000. He lives and works
in Alexandria. In 2010 he launched MASS Alexandria,
the first Independent Studio Programme for young
artists in the city. Shawky has received international
acclaim for his work as an artist and filmmaker, his work
largely explores transitional events in society, politics,
culture and religion in the history of the Arab world. He
has had numerous solo shows including: Nottingham
Contemporary, Nottingham, UK (2011) Galerie SfeirSemler, Beirut, Lebanon (2010), Cittadellarte, Italy
(2010), Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, Egypt (2009).
Cabaret Crusades: The Horror Show File (2010) at
‘Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennial)’(2011). He has also
exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK (2011),
Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels, Belgium (2011), New
Museum and Queen’s Museum of Art, New York, UK,
SITE Santa Fe Biennial, Santa Fe, US (2008); 3rd Riwaq
36
Biennale, Ramallah, Palestine (2009), 3rd Marrakech
Biennale, Morocco (2009), ‘Disorientation II’, Abu Dhabi,
UAE (2009), 2nd Moscow Biennale, Russia (2007), 50th
Venice Biennale, Italy (2003) among others. His work
is included in the collections of Tate Modern, London,
MACRO Museum, Rome, Darat Al Funun, Amman
and Mart Museum Collection, Rovereto. Shawky has
received Egyptian and international prizes such as the
Ernest Schering Foundation Art Award, Berlin, (2011).
He has participated in several international residency
programmes. Wael Shawky is represented by Galerie
Sfeir-Semler, Hamburg/Beirut.
37
Recipients 2012
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Risham Syed (b. 1969, Lahore)
The Seven Seas
7 quilts
In The Seven Seas Risham Syed connects the intricacies of contemporary geo-politics with the 19th
and early 20th Century cotton trade of the British Empire. With fabric sourced from travels to Turkey,
Bangladesh, UAE, Sri Lanka, UK, India and within her native Pakistan, Syed weaves the history of the
location-specific craft of textile production with tales of political resistance. All her quilts depict 19th
and 20th Century maps of various port cities that were strategically located on colonial European
trade routes, such as Izmir in Turkey, Colombo in Sri Lanka, Mumbai in India, and Ras al-Khaimah
in the UAE. Apart from being trade gateways, these cities were also sites of resistance and rebellion
against the imperial powers. Each quilt is made by combining a variety of techniques, whilst the
stitching and layering of fabric echoes the layering of historical and post-colonial narratives. The
base material of all the quilts is cotton from Lahore, covered in popular - mostly European - prints,
which allude to 19th century Victorian prints. Syed’s tangible, historical cartography on fabric is a
means to investigate the void left by the colonial past. This lacuna is reflected in the white textiles
that make up the back of the quilts: made of a variety of materials such as local Pakistani toweling,
hand-woven Sri Lankan cotton, and U.K.-bought cotton that was “Made in India”. The quilts are
accompanied by postcard-size paintings portraying images of global conflict and resistance culled
from media sources. They act as footnotes to the quilts, reminding the audience that within a
globalised world the past is always threaded within the present.
Risham Syed’s practice critically focuses on the remains
of cultural/historical inheritance and its perceived
authenticity in present-day Pakistan. She received
a BFA in Painting from the National College of Art,
Lahore (1993) and an MA from the Royal College
of Art, London (1996). Solo shows include: ‘Lahore
2010’, Rohtas Gallery, Lahore (2010), ‘And the Rest
is History’, Talwar Gallery, New York (2010), Canvas
Gallery, Karachi (2008). Her work has been exhibited
in group shows including: ‘The Rising Tide’, Mohatta
Palace Museum, Karachi (2010-11), Art Dubai, (2010),
‘Resemble/Reassemble’, Devi Art Foundation, Gurgaon,
India (2009), ‘Emperor’s New Clothes: Dress, Politics
and Identity in Pakistani Art’, Talwar Gallery (2008),
‘Conversations 1’, Elementa Gallery, Dubai (2007),
‘Landscape and Outside the Cube’, National Gallery
of Art, Islamabad, (2005), ‘58 Years of Pakistani Art’,
Alhamra Art Gallery, Lahore (2004), ‘Playing with the
38
loaded gun’, Apex Art, New York (2002) & Kunsthalle
Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany (2004) 2nd Fukuoka
Triennale, Museum of Asian Art, Fukuoka, Japan (2002),
in ‘Threads, Dreams and Desires’, The Harris Museum,
Preston, UK (1998). She was awarded the Stephenson
Harwood Award (1996), Charles Wallace Trust
Scholarship, UK (1996) and the Cite’ International des
Arts, Paris, France (1995). She is currently an Assistant
Professor at the School of Visual Art, Beaconhouse
National University, Lahore, Pakistan, where she
continues to live and work. Risham Syed is represented
by Talwar Gallery, New York, New Delhi.
39
Recipients 2012
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Raed Yassin (b. 1979, Beirut)
China
7 porcelain vases
Lebanon has long struggled to come to terms with the aftermath of its civil war (1975-1990).
Even if the fighting stopped more than two decades ago, sectarian tensions are still very much
present in the country’s demographic and political make-up. Violence has for the most part ceased,
yet to date no culprits of the atrocities have been held accountable for their actions. An uneasy
amnesia, and absence of historical narrative reigns in Lebanon in order to keep a brittle peace. In an
attempt to formulate the cycle of this unaccounted history, Raed Yassin has chosen an unorthodox
and innovative way of attempting to represent - ‘frieze’ as it were - important historical events
of Lebanese contemporary history. His work struggles with the impossibility of reading things of
the past in a comprehensive way. In China he shows seven Chinese porcelain vases, produced at
Jingdezhen - China’s capital of porcelain. Depicting key battles of the Lebanese civil war, amongst
others the War of the Hotels (1975-1976), the Battle for Tal al-Zaatar (1976), the Israeli invasion of
Beirut (1982) and the so-called War of Liberation (1989). These vases are part-beautiful object, parthistorical document, and part-mass-produced product. They echo the ancient tradition of recording
victories at battle on vases and ceramics for the sake of posterity, as well as a domestic decorative
readymade that can easily be found in any Lebanese home. Yassin decided to detail battles that
were instrumental for territorial, demographic and political shifts, and whose ramifications are still
tangible today. The circularity of the vases hint at an impossibility of closure - there is no beginning
and no end when we view the vases, reflecting the unresolved situation in present-day Lebanon.
Raed Yassin lives and works in Beirut and graduated
from the theatre department of the Institute of Fine
Arts in Beirut in 2003. An artist and musician, Yassin’s
work often originates from an examination of his
personal narratives and their position within a collective
history, through the lens of consumer culture and
mass production. He has exhibited and performed
his work in numerous museums, festivals and venues
across Europe, the Middle East, the United States and
Japan, including Sharjah Biennial 10 (2011), Delfina
Foundation, London (2010-11) where he completed
a residency program, Manifesta 8, Murcia (2010-11),
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2011), De-Ateliers,
Amsterdam following a 2-year residency, Home Works
5, Beirut (2010) and Photo Cairo 4 (2008). Yassin was
40
awarded the Fidus Prize for The Best of Sammy Clark
at Beirut Art Center’s ‘Exposureexhibition’ (2009), the
AFAC grant for production (2010), the YATF grant for
production (2008) and the Cultural Resource grant for
production (2008). Yassin is one of the organisers of
IRTIJAL Festival, has released 10 music albums and
founded the production company Annihaya in 2009.
He is also a founding member of Atfal Ahdath a Beirut
based art collective and his artwork is represented by
Kalfayan Galleries, Athens/Thessaloniki.
41
Curator 2012
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Curator: Nat Muller
Nat Muller is an independent curator and critic based
between Rotterdam and the Middle East. Her main
interests include the intersections of aesthetics, media
and politics, media art and contemporary art in and
from the Middle East. She has held staff positions at
V2_Institute for Unstable Media in Rotterdam and De
Balie, Centre for Arts & Politics in Amsterdam. Muller is
a regular contributor for Springerin and MetropolisM.
Her work has been published a.o. in Art Papers, Bidoun,
ArtPulse, X-tra, Majalla Foreign Affairs Magazine, De
Volkskrant, The Daily Star, and in a variety of catalogues
and publications. She has curated video screenings for
projects and festivals in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Berlin,
New York, Istanbul, Copenhagen, Grimstad, Lugano,
Dubai, Cairo and Beirut. With Alessandro Ludovico she
edited the Mag.netReader2: Between Paper and Pixel
(2007), and Mag.netReader3: Processual Publishing,
Actual Gestures (2009), based on a series of debates
organized at Documenta XII. She has taught at the
Willem de Kooning Academy (NL), ALBA (Beirut), the
Lebanese American University (Beirut), AUD in (Dubai)
(UAE), and the Rietveld Academy (NL). She has served
as an advisor on Euro-Med collaborations for the
European Cultural Foundation (ECF), the EU, and as an
advisor on e-culture for the Dutch Ministry of Culture,
and is currently art and new media advisor to the Dutch
city of Utrecht. She is working on her first book for the
Institute of Network Cultures and Nai Publishers. She
serves on the advisory board of the Palestinian website
project Artterritories (Ramallah), the arts organisation
TENT (Rotterdam), and is on the selection committee of
the Mondriaan Fund (NL), The Netherlands largest fund
for the arts.
Detail, Hrair Sarkissian,
Background, Six duratrans
prints, 180 x 227 cm
42
43
Recipients 2011
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Hamra Abbas (b. 1976, Kuwait)
Woman in Black
Stained glass window, 3 panels, 264 x 43 cm (each)
Installed within a darkened chamber, Woman in Black depicts the iconic image of a fictional
super-heroine. The illustrations are reminiscent of Mogul miniature painting, but their form echoes
traditional stained glass technique, prevalent in the Middle Ages. Stained glass originally had
a clear didactic function and was used to depict narratives from the Bible to a largely illiterate
populace. Seen from inside a place of worship, such windows were deliberately intended to focus
the attention of the congregation on the sacred image during the sermon. The interplay of light and
dark serve as metaphors for good and evil and are deliberately employed by Abbas to accentuate
the mysterious powers of the female figure enshrined within the glass, placed in the centre of a
scene of conflict, suggestive of the worldly realities of contemporary society. Abbas playfully adapts
an illuminated painting into an illuminated window, whose image by design, comes and goes with
the fading of the day.
Hamra Abbas lives and works between Islamabad and
Boston. Abbas has a versatile practice that straddles
a wide range of media. Drawing upon culturally
loaded imagery and iconography, in an often playful
manner, Abbas appropriates and transforms traditional
motifs and styles to examine questions of conflict
within society. She has held several international solo
exhibitions that include Cityscape, OUTLET Independent
Art Space, Istanbul (2010); Adventures of the Woman
in Black, Green Cardamom (2008); God Grows on
Trees, Schultz Contemporary, Berlin (2008) and Lessons
on Love, Rohtas 2, Lahore (2006). Her work has also
been included in the 9th Sharjah Biennial (2009); the
International Incheon Women Artists Biennale (2009):
Thessaloniki Biennale (2009); Guangzou Triennial (2008);
Istanbul Biennial (2007) and Sydney Biennale (2006).
In 2009 Abbas was awarded the Jury Prize at the 9th
Sharjah Biennial and was shortlisted for the inaugural
Jameel Prize. She is represented by PILOT, Istanbul and
Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai.
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45
Recipients 2011
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Jananne Al-Ani (b. 1966, Kirkuk)
Shadow Sites II
Single channel digital video
Shadow Sites II is a film that takes the form of an aerial journey. It is made up of images of a
landscape bearing traces of natural and man-made activity as well as ancient and contemporary
structures. Seen from above, the landscape appears abstracted, its buildings flattened and its
inhabitants invisible to the human eye. Only when the sun is at its lowest do the features on the
ground, the archaeological sites and settlements come to light. Such ‘shadow sites’ when seen
from the air, map the latent images held by the landscape’s surface. Much like a photographic plate,
the landscape itself holds the potential to be exposed, thereby revealing the memory of its past.
Historically, representations of the Middle Eastern landscape, from William Holman Hunt’s 1854
painting The Scapegoat to media images from the 1991 Desert Storm campaign have depicted the
region as uninhabited and without sign of civilization. In response to the military’s use of digital
technology and satellite navigation, Al-Ani produces a film that recreates the aerial vantage point of
such missions while taking an altogether different viewpoint of the land it surveys. The film burrows
into the landscape as one image slowly dissolves into another, like a mineshaft tunneling deep into a
substrate of memories preserved over time.
Working with photography, film and video, Jananne
Al-Ani has a longstanding interest in the power of
testimony and the documentary tradition, be it through
intimate recollections of absence and loss or the
exploration of more official accounts of historic events.
Solo exhibitions of her work have been held at Darat
al Funun, Amman (2010); Art Now, Tate Britain (2005);
and the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler
Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC (1999).
Recent group exhibitions include Closer, Beirut Art
Center (2009); The Screen-Eye or the New Image: 100
videos to rethink the world, Casino Luxembourg (2007)
and Without Boundary: Seventeen Ways of Looking,
Museum of Modern Art, New York (2006). Al-Ani has
also co-curated touring exhibitions including Veil (2003
- 4) and Fair Play (2001 - 2). Her work can be found in
public collections, among them the Victoria & Albert
Museum and Tate, London; the Pompidou Centre,
Paris; the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC and
Darat al Funun, Amman. Al-Ani’s photographic work is
represented by Rose Issa Projects, London.
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47
Recipients 2011
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Shezad Dawood (b. 1974, London)
New Dream Machine Project
Light sculpture (brushed steel, florescent lights, electronic motor) and 16mm film
The inspiration behind the project begins with the prototype Dream Machine by the painter Brion
Gysin (1916-1986) created in the early 1960s upon his return to the UK from Morocco. Fabricated
in Fez and the UK, in homage to Gysin, Dawood’s kinetic light sculpture is designed to emit
kaleidoscopic light pulses similar in effect to alpha waves produced by the brain to induce states
of unconsciousness. An additional part of Dawood’s project is a concert featuring the acclaimed
Bedouin Master Musicians of Jajouka, who were the house band at Gysin’s ‘1001 Nights’ restaurant,
which he opened in Tangiers in 1954 with the Moroccan painter Mohamed Hamri. The concert also
pays tribute to Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones’s cult album Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of
Pan at Joujouka (1971) made after Jones was introduced to the musicians whilst in Tangiers with
Gysin and Hamri. Contemporary British guitarist Duke Garwood plays the role of Jones, alongside
the current ensemble of The Master Musicians of Jajouka, led by Bachir Attar. Built using local
craftsmen, in association with the experimental art space L’appartement 22, the work makes
manifest a network of cultural, seemingly chance encounters spanning time and geography.
Shezad Dawood received an MPhil in Fine Art
Photography from the Royal College of Art (2000 3) before gaining his PhD from Leeds Metropolitan
University in 2008. Dawood has a research based
practise that employs many different art forms. The
evolution of his work has become increasingly more
interdisciplinary and collaborative, as part of a discursive
interest in mapping territories through narrative
intersections between history, literature and cultural
appropriation. Following his first solo show, Shezad
Dawood & Friends, held at his studio in 2006, solo
exhibitions of his work have been held at: Axel Lapp
Projects, Berlin (2007); The Third Line, Dubai (2008);
Galleria Riccardo Crespi, Milan (2008); Galerie Gabriel
Rolt, Amsterdam (2009) and Aarhus Kunstbygning,
Denmark (2010). He has also participated in the
following group exhibitions: Empire Strikes Back: Indian
Art Today, Saatchi Gallery, London; Disorientation II,
Emirates Palace, Abu Dhabi (2009); Making Worlds,
The 53rd Venice Biennale (2009); Altermodern, Tate
Britain (2009); Century City, Tate Modern, London
48
(2001) and 000zerozerozero, Whitechapel Art Gallery,
London (1999). Dawood’s works are in the collections of
Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, the Saatchi
Collection and The Frank Cohen Collection in the UK.
He is represented by The Third Line, Dubai; Paradise
Row, London; Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai;
Galleria Riccardo Crespi, Milan; and Galerie Gabriel Rolt,
Amsterdam.
49
Recipients 2011
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Nadia Kaabi-Linke (b. 1978, Tunis)
Flying Carpets
Chrome-plated aluminum, thread, dimensions variable
From the legendary stories of King Solomon to One Thousand and One Nights and Hollywood’s Thief
of Baghdad (1924), The image of the flying carpet has entered popular imagination as one of most
universally recognised symbols of the ‘orient,’ additionally suggesting a boundless and unrestricted
mode of travel and freedom. The practical use of carpets by hawkers who sell counterfeit goods on
the streets of Venice sits in stark contrast to this freedom, as the mobility of such street sellers is
greatly restricted. Of mainly African, Arab or South Asian descent, the peddlars use their carpets to
bundle together goods in order to flee detection from the authorities. The artist’s installation gives
this socio-political predicament expression. In her work, geometric metal forms, derived from stencil
outlines of the hawker’s carpets, are suspended by cascades of hanging thread. Taking the form of
a bridge, Il Ponte del Sepolcro found in Venice, the work hovers in space like a floating cage. With
beauty and fragility, Kaabi-Linke underlines what is in effect a day to day sense of confinement
experienced by the hawkers as they clandestinely ‘move’ from place to place.
Nadia Kaabi-Linke studied at the University of Fine
Arts in Tunis (1999) before receiving a PhD from the
Sorbonne University in Paris (2008). Her installations,
objects and pictorial works are embedded in urban
contexts, intertwined with memory and geographically
and politically constructed identities. She held her first
major solo show, Tatort at Galerie Christian Hosp, Berlin
in 2010. She has participated in several international
group exhibitions that include Drawn from Life, Green
Cardamom (2009 - 10) and Abbot Hall Art Gallery,
Kendall, UK (2011); Split, Darb 1718 Contemporary,
Cairo (2010); Aftermath, 25th Alexandria Biennale
(2009); 9th Sharjah Biennial (2009); Art Connexions:
Arab Contemporary Artists (2008) and Archives des
banalities tunisoises (2009) both held at Galerie El
Marsa, Tunis, the second was a solo show. In 2009 she
was awarded the Jury Prize by the Alexandria Biennale.
Kaabi-Linke is represented by Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai and
Experimenter, Kolkata.
50
51
Recipients 2011
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Timo Nasseri (b. 1972, Berlin)
Gon
Stainless steel, 567 x 230 x 300 cm
Gon takes its name from the Greek and German words for a unit of measurement used to calculate
angles within a circle. Formed of a rhombus created by two isosceles triangles, the stainless steel
sculpture recalls muqarnas, ornamentation made from small pointed niches stacked in tiers widely
used in medieval architecture in north-eastern Iran and North Africa. From afar the work calls to
mind Russian Constructivism through a combination of its material properties (faktura) and its
spatial presence (tektonika). Up close however, the rhythmic network of the 88 heat-sealed pipes
are inspired by the geometric drawings of the Swiss mathematician Jakob Steiner. As one moves
around the sculpture, the pipes appear to twist and bend causing their symmetrical arrangement
to disappear and reappear in new spatial configurations. This illusion contrasts with the sculptures
shadow, which behaves more predictably, appearing or moving in accordance with the light. Like
much of the artist’s work, the sculpture gives expression to the quantitative logic of systems that
exist across cultures and history, and the inherent, yet uncanny, beauty that results from their
intersection.
Timo Nasseri began his artistic career as a photographer
and in 2004 he made the transition to sculpture.
Combining Islamic and western cultural heritages,
his work is inspired as much by specific memories
and religious references as by universal archetypes
described by mathematics and language and the
inner truths of form and rhythm. He has held several
solo exhibitions which include Ghazal, Sfeir-Semler,
Hamburg (2009); One of Six, Kunstverein Arnsberg
(2009); Epistrophy (2008) and Falling Stars (2006) both
at Galerie Schleicher+Lange, Paris and Op-Felder,
Galerie ABEL Raum fur Neue Kunst, Berlin (2002). He
has also participated in the following group exhibitions:
Taaffe-Streuli-Nasseri, Sfeir-Semler, Beirut (2010);
Nasseri/Englund, Schleicher+Lange, Paris (2010); En
Miroir, CRAC Alsace (2010); Taswir - Pictorial Mappings
of Islam and Modernity, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin
(2009); Mashq: repetition, meditation, meditation, Green
52
Cardamom, London (2009) and Eurasia, Museo di Arte
Moderna e Contemporanea, Trento (2008); Phoenix
vs Babylone, Espace Paul Richard, Paris (2008) and
ECHO, Sfeir-Semler, Beirut (2008). He was awarded the
Prix Saar Ferngas Förderpreis Junge Kunst in 2006. He
is represented by Galerie Schleicher+Lange, Paris and
Sfeir-Semler, Hamburg and Beirut.
53
Curator 2011
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Curator: Sharmini Pereira
Sharmini Pereira is the director and founder of Raking
Leaves, a not-for-profit independent publisher of artists’
book projects and special editions, now regularly
funded by the Arts Council England. Since 1999 she
has worked internationally as an independent curator
and writer. In 2006 she co-curated the first Singapore
Biennale. She was a Trustee for Book Works, London
(2005-2010) and an academic advisor for the Asia Art
Archive (AAA), Hong Kong (2005-2009). She currently
acts on the boards of several international organisations
and journals such as: Arts Initiative Tokyo, Tokyo; In(de)
print, South Africa and Camden Council Public Art
Advisory Board, London. Sharmini lives and works in
London and Columbo.
The Abraaj Capital Art Prize winner
Nadia-Kaabi-Linke (ACAP 2011, Tunisia)
showcased in ‘The Future of a Promise’
exhibition, Venice, Italy, 2011
54
55
Recipients 2010
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Kader Attia (b. 1970, France)
History of a Myth: The Small Dome of the Rock
Multi-media installation
The artwork consists of a miniature sculpture comprised of two silver nuts of different sizes holding
in place a brass bolt. A camera is placed alongside this assemblage to capture its form which is
then projected onto a large canvas increasing it to many times its size. Once projected the very
small assemblage evokes an architectural representation of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
The evocative sound of wind against the mosque’s esplanade recreates the sensory experience the
artist experienced when he visited the monument. The mysterious, amplified noise reverberating
through the dark space, illuminated only by the striking projection on the canvas, creates a lasting
impression on the viewer.
Kader Attia, spent his childhood between France and
Algeria, or between the Christian Occident and the
Islamic Maghreb. His work explores the impact of
Western cultural and political capitalism on the Middle
East and North Africa (MENA), as well as how a residual
struggle with and resistance to colonisation impacts
Arab youth, particularly in the banlieues (suburbs) of
France where Attia lived. He is represented by Galerie
Christian Nagel (Berlin and Cologne) and Galerie
Krinzinger (Vienna).
Curator: Laurie Ann Farrell
Born in 1970, Laurie Ann Farrell is Curator and Executive
Director of Exhibitions for the Savannah College of Art
and Design (SCAD), which operates galleries in Atlanta
and Savannah, Georgia, Lacoste in France and in
Hong Kong. From 1999 to 2007 Farrell was Curator of
Contemporary Art at the Museum for African Art in New
York. Farrell earned her MA in Art History and Theory
from the University of Arizona.
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57
Recipients 2010
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Hala Elkoussy (b. 1974, Cairo)
Myths and Legends Room: The Mural
48 framed colour photographs,10 x 4 m
Myths and Legends Room: The Mural is an unexpected take on the mural as a commemorative work
of propaganda art, referencing wall paintings and dioramas that celebrate the history of modern
Egypt. By distilling what can be viewed as an anthology of contemporary myths and legends, a
more fluid and human reading of history is brought forward, standing in sharp contrast to how it is
presented in the educational systems of Egypt and most of the Arab World. Treating modernisation
as a loss of tradition as well as a challenge, the work reflects on the speed of the dazzling urbanalteration process, for which the fast-growing, dynamic, contemporary metropolis of Cairo serves as
a prime example.
Hala Elkoussy studied at the American University of
Cairo (AUC) before completing an MA in Image and
Communication at Goldsmiths College, University of
London. In 2004, she co-founded the Contemporary
Image Collective, an artist-run initiative dedicated to the
visual image based in Cairo. Elkoussy’s work delves into
the intimate and overlooked sides of communal living to
highlight underlying dynamics at play within the complex
urban structure that is Cairo.
Curator: Jelle Bouwhuis
Jelle Bouwhuis was born in 1965 in Utrecht, The
Netherlands. He is an art historian, critic, writer and
curator. Since 2006 he has been curator at the Stedelijk
Museum in Amsterdam where he is responsible for the
programme of exhibitions, publications and residences.
He also manages the activities of the Stedelijk Museum
Bureau, a project space in the city centre.
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Recipients 2010
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Marwan Sahmarani (b. 1970, Lebanon)
The Feast of the Damned
Paintings, drawings, ceramics, projection, 9 x 5.5 x 3.5 m
The Feast of the Damned is an installation integrating painting, drawing, ceramics and film inspired
by Hell: Fall of the Condemned Ones by Rubens. Sahmarani has created a three-dimensional
space in which the themes of martyrdom and expiation are dealt with in a way that resembles the
millennia-old techniques of fresco painting in combination with contemporary media. The themes
of the work are rooted in the cultural traditions of the Middle East and are part of its contemporary
socio-cultural reality, where various notions of evil are activated in political discourse at the service
of agendas of control and violence, in association to gender, certain ideologies and civil society.
Marwan Sahmarani works in Beirut. With an archetypal
biography specific to his generation, he left Lebanon in
1989 and moved to Paris to study at l’École Supérieur
d’Art Graphique. His practice often makes historical
reference to art history and socio-political issues that
are still very present in the Middle East but inspired by
themes that are timeless. Sahmarani has exhibited with
Fadi Mogabgab Contemporary Art Gallery, Beirut, The
Third Line, Dubai, Selma Feriani Gallery, London and
Kaysha Hildebrand, Zurich.
Curator: Mahita El Bacha
Mahita El Bacha Urieta is a curator, producer and arts
policy specialist based in London. She has been active
in the Middle East, working with the Sharjah Biennial
(2004-07) and the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture
& Heritage (ADACH). She has a BA in History and
Archaeology of the Eastern Mediterranean region from
the American University of Beirut (1997) and an MA in
Arts Policy and Management, City University, London
(2000).
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Recipients 2009
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Kutlug Ataman (b. 1961, Istanbul)
Strange Space
Video projection from digital video loop
The artist is filmed while crossing a sulphurous desert land with bare feet and blind-folded eyes.
A vision inspired by folk tales typical of Mesoptamia in which the hero, blinded by the love of the
heroine, is condemned to wander in the desert trying to find her, and eventually burst into flames
when they finally meet. The narrative is used as a metaphor of the encounter of modernity and
tradition, of their reciprocal attraction and the trauma it may cause.
Kutlug Ataman is an acclaimed filmmaker and
artist. Ataman’s works primarily document the lives
of marginalised individuals, examining the ways
people create and rewrite their identities through
self-expression, blurring the line between reality and
fiction. In 2009 Mesopotamian Dramaturgies - a multielement project which includes Strange Space was
exhibited at Lentos Museum as part of Linz European
Capital of Culture 2009. His work has been shown at
Thomas Dane Gallery, London (2009) and Whitechapel
Gallery, London (2009/10). Kutlug Ataman shows with
Francesca Minini.
Curator: Cristiana Perrella
Born in 1965, Cristiana Perrella was curator of the
Contemporary Arts Program at the British School at
Rome for ten years until 2008. In 2007 she was the
founding curator of SACS, a Regional Agency for
Contemporary Art in Sicily. She has published two
survey books on the Italian art scene of the 1990s.
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Recipients 2009
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Zoulikha Bouabdellah (b. 1977, Moscow)
Walk on the Sky. Pisces
Mixed media installation, 6 x 6 x 3m
A re-creation of the celestial canopy in the month of March, this installation invites the viewer to
walk on the sky. Sleek and contemporary, it features the polygonal star of Islamic art and is inspired
by sources as rich and varied as the tenth-century Book of Fixed Stars by the Persian astronomer
Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi and the tale of King Solomon’s glass floor, which tricked the Queen of Sheba
(Bilqis), into believing it was a pool of water.
Zoulikha Bouabdellah was born in Moscow while her
parents were graduate students in documentary film
and art history. She moved back to her native Algiers
where she was frequently in the company of artists,
spending time at the Musée National des Beaux-Arts
d’Alger, where her mother was curator for ten years
and director until 1994 when they were forced to flee
to Paris. Bouabdellah shows with L.A. B.A.N.K., Paris
and Gallery Isabelle Van Den Eynde, Dubai and Sabrina
Amrani, Madrid.
Curator: Carol Solomon
American-born art historian and curator Carol Solomon
is currently Visiting Associate Professor of Art History
at Haverford College, Haverford, Pennsylvania. Dr.
Solomon received her PhD in Art History from the
University of Pittsburgh in 1987.
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Recipients 2009
THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Nazgol Ansarinia (b. 1979, Tehran)
Rhyme and Reason
Carpet, handwoven wool, silk and cotton, 255 x 355 cm
In Rhyme and Reason the traditional motifs of the Persian carpet are replaced with everyday scenes
of contemporary life in urban Iran. In this work, Ansarinia draws parallels between the design of the
Persian carpet, an intricate composition of intertwining and often disparate motifs, with the structure
of life in her native Tehran. Tehran is a multi-layered and complex city, made up of many competing
fragments coexisting within one framework. Ansarinia’s work broaches the social existence within
Iran; her unexpected imagery breaks up preconceived notions or romanticised views of the orient.
Nazgol Ansarinia, lives and works in Tehran. She works
in a variety of media, including installation, film, print and
drawing. Her visual language is mostly determined by
the nature of her subject. Ansarinia received her BA in
Graphic and Media Design from the London School of
Communications and her MFA in Design from CCA San
Francisco. She was one of three finalists of the Rolex
Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative program 2008 and
showed with Green Art Gallery, Dubai.
Curator: Leyla Fakhr
Leyla Fakhr is an independent curator and an Assistant
Curator at Tate Britain. She previously worked at the
Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art and studied in
Tehran and London, where she received her MA in
Curating from Goldsmiths College, University of London
in 2006.
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THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Management
Exhibition venues
Chair: Savita Apte
2009 WINNERS
Selection Committee 2014
Antonia Carver
Director, Art Dubai, Dubai
Dana Farouki
Trustee, MoMA PS1 / Creative Time; Dubai/New York
Salwa Mikdadi
Co-Founder/Ex-Director, Cultural and Visual Arts Resource/ICWA; Co-Founder,
Association of Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab world, Iran and Turkey
(AMCA); Abu Dhabi
Jessica Morgan
The Daskalopoulos Curator, International Art, Tate; Curator - Contemporary Art, Tate
Modern; London
Fayeeza Naqvi
Founding Trustee, Aman Foundation / Aangan Trust; Founding Director, Saharay
Welfare Organisation, Dubai; Member, TATE MENAAC & SAAC committees
Frederic Sicre
Managing Director, The Abraaj Group, Dubai
Of Abraaj Group Art Prize ARTWORKS
Nazgol Ansarinia (Iran), Rhyme & Reason, 2009
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Dubai International Financial Centre, Dubai, summer 2009
Museum of Arts & Design, New York, August 26 - October 4 2009
Celebration of Entrepreneurship, Madinat Jumeirah, November 2010, Abraaj
event
Abraaj Capital Art Prize, Maraya Arts Centre, Al Qasba, Sharjah, UAE, March May 2010
Dubai International Financial Centre, Dubai, March - August 2011
Edge of Arabia Jeddah / We Need To Talk, 18 - 21 January 2012
Safar/Voyage: Contemporary works by Arab, Iranian and Turkish Artists, Museum
of Contemporary Anthropology, Vancouver, 20 April - 15 September 2013
Kutlug Ataman (Turkey), Strange Space, 2009
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Dubai International Financial Centre, Dubai,
Museum of Arts & Design, New York, August 26 - October 4 2009
Maraya Arts Centre, Al Qasba, Sharjah, UAE, March - May 2010
MAXXI, The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome, 30 May to 12
September 2010
Kutlug Ataman - The Enemy Inside Me, Istanbul Modern, 10 November 2010 - 6
March 2011
Safar/Voyage: Contemporary works by Arab, Iranian and Turkish Artists, Museum
of Contemporary Anthropology, Vancouver, 20 April - 15 September 2013
Zoulikha Bouabdellah (Algeria), Walk on the Sky. Pisces, 2009
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Museum of Arts & Design, New York, August 26 - October 4 2009
Maraya Arts Centre, Al Qasba, Sharjah, UAE, March - May 2010
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THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
2010 WINNERS
2011 WINNERS
Kader Attia (Algeria), Small History of a Myth: The Dome of the Rock, 2010
Jananne Al-Ani (Iraq), Shadow Sites II, 2011
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Dubai International Financial Centre, Dubai, 31 March - 30 June 2010
Museum of Arts & Design, New York, August 31 - October 10, 2010
‘Sacred Spaces’, Galleria Civica di Moderna, Moderna, Italy, 4 December 2010 6 March 2011
‘Chkoun Ahna’, National Museum of Carthage, Tunis, May - June 2012
‘The Changing Room’, Davenports Magic Shop, London, 15 August -September
30 2012
‘Terms and Conditions’ Singapore Art Museum, 28 June - 8 September 2013
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Hala Elkoussy (Egypt), The Myths and Legends Room: the Mural, 2010
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Dubai International Financial Centre, Dubai, 31 March - 30 June 2010
Museum of Arts & Design, New York, August 31 - October 10, 2010
‘Shubbak: A Window on Contemporary Arab Culture’, City Hall, London, July
2011 ‘Chkoun Ahna’, National Museum of Carthage, Tunis, May - June 2012
‘Cairo. Open City: New Testimonies from an Ongoing Revolution’, Museum of
Photography, Braunschweig, 28 September - 23 December 2012
‘Re-emerge: Towards a New Cultural Cartography’, Sharjah Biennial 11, 13
March - 13 May 2013
Marwan Sahmarani (Lebanon), Feast of the Damned, 2010
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Dubai International Financial Centre, Dubai 31 March - 30 June 2010
Museum of Arts & Design, New York, August 31 - October 10, 2011
‘The Future of a Promise’, official collateral exhibition of the 54th Venice Biennale,
Venice, 4 June - 27 November 2011
‘Topographies de la Guerre’, Le Bal, Paris, 17 September au 18 December 2011
‘All Our Relations’ 18th Biennale of Sydney, Sydney, 27 June - 16 September
2012
Shadow Sites: Recent Work by Jananne Al-Ani, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery,
Smithsonian Institution, August 25, 2012—February 10, 2013
Light from the Middle East: New Photography, Victoria and Albert Museum, 13
November 2012 - 07 April 2013
Groundwork, Jananne Al-Ani, Beirut Art Centre, 7 February - 6 April 2013
‘Re-emerge: Towards a New Cultural Cartography’, Sharjah Biennial 11, March May 2013
‘Terms and Conditions’ Singapore Art Museum, 28 June - 8 September 2013
Shezad Dawood (Pakistan/India/UK), New Dream Machine, 2011
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Edge of Arabia Jeddah / We Need To Talk, 18 - 21 January 2012
‘Piercing Brightness’, Newlyn Art Gallery 23rd June - 29th September & the
Exchange 30th
June - 15th September 2012
‘Parasolstice - Winter Light’, Parasol Unit, 5 December 2012 - 23 February 2013
I Look to You and I See Nothing, Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE, 16 November
2013 - 16 February 2014
Boghossian Foundation - Villa Empain
Nadia Kaabi-Linke (Tunisia), Flying Carpets, 2011
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‘The Future of a Promise’, official collateral exhibition of the 54th Venice Biennale,
Venice, 4 June - 27 November 2011
Timo Nasseri (Berlin) Gon, 2011
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Edge of Arabia Jeddah / We Need To Talk, 18 - 21 January 2012
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THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
2012 WINNERS
Hrair Sarkissian (Damascus) Background, 2013
Taysir Batniji (Palestine), To My Brother, 2012
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As part of ‘Systems and Patterns’, International Centre for Graphic Arts, Ljubljana,
Slovenia September - November 2012
Shangri La: Imagined Cities, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (LAMAG), USA,
October 23 - December 28, 2014
Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige (Lebanon), A Letter Can Always Reach its
Destination, 2012
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‘Intense Proximity’, La Triennale, Palais De Tokyo, Paris, 19 April - 27 August
2012
Kochi-Muziris Biennale, December 2012 - March 2013
‘Terms and Conditions’ Singapore Art Museum, 28 June - 8 September 2013
Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, Villa Arson, Nice, 6 July - 12 October 2014
(using artists copy)
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Dubai International Financial Centre, Dubai, 22 August 2013 - 24 August 2014
Rayyane Tabet (Ashqout) FIRE/CAST/DRAW 2013
Customs Made: Quotidian Practices & Everyday Rituals, Maraya Art Centre,
March 12 - May 12 2014
“Territoire d’affects” , Beirut Exhibition Center May/June 2015 (FUTURE)
2014 WINNERS
Abbas Akhavan (Tehran), Study for a Hanging Garden, 2014
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Gwangju Biennale, Korea, 3 September - 9 November 2014
‘Common Grounds’, Villa Stuck, Vienna, 12 February - 17 May, 2015 (FUTURE)
Bouchra Khalili (Casablanca), Garden Conversation, 2014
Artistas Comprometidos? Talvez, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, 20
Jun 2014-7 Sep 2014 (using artists copy)
‘Common Grounds’, Villa Stuck, Vienna, 12 February - 17 May, 2015 (FUTURE)
Risham Syed (Pakistan), The Seven Seas, 2012
Basim Magdy (Cairo), The Dent, 2014
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Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art , Zhejiang Art Museum, 21 September - 20
November 2013
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Raed Yassin (Lebanon), China, 2012
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‘Terms and Conditions’ Singapore Art Museum, 28 June - 8 September 2013
‘The Blue Route’, Villa Empain, Brussels, September 27 2013 - February 9 2014
‘Blue Times’, Wien Kunsthalle, Vienna, 1 October, 2014 - 11 January 2015
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2013 WINNERS
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Iman Issa (Cairo) Common Elements, 2013
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Iman Issa, Tensta Konstall, Stockholm, 13 June —29 September 2013
Dubai International Financial Centre, Dubai, 24 August 2014 - 23 August 2015
Basim Magdy. Conversation with screening, one night screening at Kunstraum
Riehen, Basel, Switzerland, 9 April 2014, (using artists copy)
Basim Magdy, State of Concept, Athens, June 6 - September 6 2014 (using
artists copy)
Lothringer 13, Munich, Group show, July 17 - October 12 2014
Ghosts, Spies and Grandmothers, 8th Seoul International Media Art Biennale,
Mediacity Seoul 2014, September 2-November 23, 2014
Video Room, The Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle from 30
September - 20 October 2014
L’avenir (looking forward), La Biennale de Montreal, October 21, 2014 - January
4, 2015
New: Vision Award of the CPH:DOX Film festival in Copenhagen, 6 - 16
November, 2014 (using artists copy) (FUTURE)
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THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
Photographs courtesy:
Richard Allenby-Pratt, Thomas Brown, Duncan Chard, Jeroen Kramer, Alex Maguire,
Max Milligan, Vipul Sangoi, Artists, Curators, The Abraaj Group Art Prize
www.abraajgroupartprize.com
www.facebook.com/AbraajArtPrize
@abraajartprize
www.abraaj.com
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