The Abraaj Capital Art: Selection Process

Savita Apte - Chair – Abraaj Capital Art Prize
(As told to Reem Fekri & Salma Tuqan)

"The Abraaj Capital Art Prize developed because there was no indigenous prize to reach local and regional artists – particularly within a region where art was valued for its commercial transactions - it seemed really important to us to institute a prize that recognized talent without a commercial aspect. Basically, as there are no institutions in the region (yet) that could initiate a prize, it fell to a corporate sponsor to take on the role of a canon forming body. Abraaj Capital was extremely generous in giving Art Dubai the money to set up the prize on their behalf – together, we realized we didn’t want to limit it to works that are currently being produced, as most artists within the region show works in commercial galleries. In this way artists only showed what was sellable – sometimes their own creative impulses were thwarted by commercial realities. What we intended was to set artists free to dream. In doing this we thought it was necessary to collaborate with an international curator as these sorts of collaborations would force the artists out of their own safety zones and push boundaries. In turn, the collaboration allowed international curators to gain an insight into the creative excellence of the region.

There were ninety-seven applications – which was quite overwhelming. There were curators from Santa Barbara through to Japan. At the beginning when we started the whole process we thought it would be amazing if we had fifteen applications so to receive ninety-seven took us by surprise. When we started going through them there very few applications that we not up to standard – the process of weaning them down was incredibly difficult. Each member of the selection committee did this objectively and without guidelines. When we met in London in July 2008 we came to the table with our own shortlists which we went through and each member of the selection committee had the opportunity to say why they were for each project and application and what were the negatives in others – it eventually became clear that we thinking broadly along the same lines.

Every member was looking for innovation and concept as well as the use of medium – a sense of aesthetic that was rooted in the culture where the artist came from, a unique sense of looking at their culture and a sense of contemporariness of timeliness of the work. Then there was the more pragmatic considerations that the work would belong to a corporate collection – and, of course, that the end result had to be a physical work of art. Therefore we couldn’t consider performance or ephemeral objects. It also is important that they would reflect the corporate image of Abraaj capital. The selection committee meeting was long – one in which no egos were involved – it was a very passionate but very objective process of selection and was by no means easy to come down to the last three winners.  

Considering the level of applications for this year and the condensed timeframe that everyone had, I believe next year will bring in even better applications for projects from an even wider range of artists who collaborate with a geographically broad spectrum of curators."

Abraaj Capital Art Prize: Artist Biographies 

Kutlug Ataman
Kutluğ Ataman studied film at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the United States, graduating with a Masters of Fine Arts degree (MFA) in 1988. He pursued careers in feature filmmaking and contemporary art, attaining critical acclaim in both.  His works primarily document the lives of marginalized individuals, examining the ways in which people create and rewrite their identities through self-expression, blurring the line between reality and fiction. 

His first feature film, The Serpent’s Tale (Karanlık Sular) made in 1994, intriguingly utilized the metaphor of the vampire to encapsulate the crisis of contemporary Turkish culture. It was awarded five filmmaking prizes, including an honor at the Istanbul International Film Festival. In 1997, Ataman directed an eight-hour video, entitled kutluğ ataman's semiha b. unplugged, focusing his handheld camera on one of Turkey’s legendary opera singers, Semiha Berksoy, once publicly persecuted for an affair with the exiled communist poet Nazım Hikmet. Semiha Berksoy, an eccentric octogenarian, served as the subject as well as the shining star of this candid film, which was invited to several important art biennials and international film festivals. Ataman's next production, the feature film Lola+Bilidikid, made in 1998, looks at the transvestite subculture inside the Turkish guest-worker community in Berlin, Germany.  It won the "Teddy"Jury Special Prize at the 49th International Berlin Film Festival, after screening as the opening film of the festival’s Panorama Section in 1999. The same year Lola+Bilidikid won the "Best Film Award" at New York’s NewFest Festival. In 2005, Ataman directed his next feature film, 2 Girls, from his screenplay adaptation of the best-selling Turkish novel, "2 Girls"(İki Genç Kızın Romanı) by Perihan Mağden. The film tells the story of two teenage girls with contrasting personalities and backgrounds, who form a close bond with sexual implications, and by extension examines the economic, social, psychological, and sexual pressures shaping today’s youth. The movie won three prizes in 2005; "Best Actress", "Best Cinematography"and "Best Director"at Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival (Turkey’s most prestigious film festival). With this feature film Ataman also received the "Best Director"prize at the Istanbul International Film Festival and won the "Special Jury Prize"at the 8th Osian’s Cinefan Festival of Asian Cinema (New Delhi, India) in 2006.

Nazgol Ansarinia
Nazgol Ansarinia was born and raised in Tehran, and along with rest of her generation she grew up in a unique situation of social turmoil. She believes the circumstances created an awareness, which has left a great influence on her and in return on her work. At seventeen Ansarinia left Tehran to study in London and spent four years at the University of the Arts London studying graphic design. Although her field of activity has shifted from design to fine art, her design background has remained a very important part of her way of thinking and creating. Part of this shift in practice comes from the two years spent in San Francisco doing an MFA at CCA. Returning to Tehran after seven years of studying and working in Europe and US, she focuses on developing her artistic practice.

Ansarinia’s work for the past six years has been inspired by everyday objects, routines, events and experiences and their relationship to larger social contexts. Whilst drawing inspiration from the context in which shes lives in her work is equally informed by theoretical discussions of this period of time.  The kind of creating her work has built on is an amplification of the mundane, an attempt in making the ordinary something extraordinary by representing that which is interwoven and concealed in our daily lives. Through Ansarinia’s work, there is a tendency to understand the inner workings of a social system by examining, taking apart and then putting back and representing the elements of that system. This often involves dissecting the multilayered and dense nature of the everyday and presenting it detached and disconnected from its original context.

 Zoulikha Boubadellah
Video and installation artist Zoulikha Bouabdellah was born in Russia in 1977 to Algerian parents.  Raised in Algeria, she moved to Paris in 1994 and studied at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts de Cergy-Paris, receiving a Diplôme National d’Arts Plastiques in 2000 and a Diplôme National Supérieur d’Expression Plastique in 2002. Bouabdellah’s works have been widely exhibited, and she now has an international reputation.  Major recent shows in which she participated include L’art au féminin, Algiers (2008), Black Paris - Black Brussels, Bayreuth, Frankfurt, Brussels (2007-08), Global Feminisms, Brooklyn (2007), Airs de Paris, Paris (2007), Africa Remix, Düsseldorf, London, Paris, Tokyo (2004-07).  In 2007, her work was featured in the African Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale, and she has participated in the Biennale of Contemporary African Art, Dakar (2002, 2004).  Her most recent solo show was at the Eli Marsh Gallery, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts (2008), where she was Artist-in-Residence (Winter, 2008). Bouabdellah’s work focuses on issues of national and transnational identity, gender, and religion. She is represented by Galerie La B.A.N.K, Paris.

Photo Credits:
1. L-R
Cristiana Perella, Kutlug Ataman and Martin Fryer
Abraaj Capital Art Prize party at Sketch, London
© Alex Maguire / Brunswick Arts

2. L-R
Nazgol Ansarinia
Leyla Fakhr
Abraaj Capital Art Prize party at Sketch, London
© Alex Maguire / Brunswick Arts

3. L-R
Carol Solomon
Zoulikha Bouabdellah
Abraaj Capital Art Prize party at Sketch, London
© Alex Maguire / Brunswick Arts

 

 

 

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