DUBAI: Louvre Abu Dhabi has announced the 10 shortlisted artists for the 2022 The Richard Mille Art Prize, a $60,000 award launched in collaboration with the Swiss watchmaking brand of the same name. The award invited GCC nationals and residents to propose new or existing artworks that engage with the concept of “the icon.”
Afra Al-Dhaheri, Ayman Zedani, Dana Awartani, Elizabeth Dorazio, Manal Al Dowayan, Rand Abdul Jabbar, Simrin Mehra Agarwal, Shaikha Al Mazrou, Vikram Divecha, and Zeinab AlHashemi will compete for the grand prize.
The shortlisted artists will showcase their works at the museum’s Forum in the second edition of the Louvre Abu Dhabi Art “Here” exhibition, running from Nov. 18 this year to Feb. 19, 2023. The winner will be announced during a ceremony held in early 2023.
Jury members included Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan bin Khalifa Al-Nahyan, Chairman of UAE Unlimited, an art collector, and a patron of the Centre Pompidou, the British Museum and Sharjah Art Foundation; Morad Montazami, an art historian and research curator at Tate Modern, London; Hala Ward?, founding architect of HW Architecture, long-term partner of Jean Nouvel and the lead of the Louvre Abu Dhabi project; Dr. Souraya Noujaim, director of Scientific, Curatorial and Collections Management at Louvre Abu Dhabi; and Reem Fadda, director of Abu Dhabi’s Cultural Foundation and curator of Louvre Abu Dhabi Art Here 2022.
On the exhibition, Fadda said in a statement, “It is an honour to curate the second edition of the Art Here exhibition and to work with a museum that continues to champion contemporary art in the UAE and wider the region. I was thrilled to see the calibre of work the shortlisted artists put forward and believe that the exhibition will be stellar in terms of quality of production and discourse; a sentiment I am sure will be shared by our visitors and the cultural community at large. The creativity of these submissions is reflective of the strong regional artistic scene.”