Abraaj Captial Prize Winners

The winners of the 2009 Abraaj Captial Art Prize have been announced by the selection commity. After reviewing close to 100 applications from international curators and artists from the MENASA region 3 Curator/Artist teams were selected.

The Abraaj Capital Art Prize is designed to raise awareness of innovative and experimental work being created by artists working in the MENASA Region.“The spectacular reception that this inaugural Abraaj Capital Art Prize received within the art community exceeded our most ambitious expectations,” said Savita Apte, Chair of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize. “The 97 applications received from artists from the MENASA region in collaboration with curators from such diverse locations as Santa Barbara and Japan and almost every country in between, reflected a truly global world of innovation, inspiration and creativity. . We are thrilled that the main aim of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize – offering a platform which reinforces creative collaboration – has been so wholeheartedly embraced by the artistic community and it is with enormous anticipation that we await the unveiling of the works in March of next year."

Three curator/ artist teams have been chosen to exhibit the winning projects during Art Dubai in March 19th to 21st 2009.
The works will then be included in the Abraaj Capital corporate collection.

*Cristiana Perrella & Kutlug Ataman
Cristiana Perrella (Rome) is curator of the Contemporary Arts Programme at the British School in Rome where she has developed a series of events focused on the dialogue between the British and Italian art scenes. She curated several one-man shows and published a number of monographs.

Kutluğ Ataman ( Istanbul), who studied at UCLA in Los Angeles and has pursued successful careers in both feature film-making and contemporary art. His works primarily document the lives of the marginalized individual, examining the way in which people create and recreate their identities. In 2003 the London Observer named him ‘artist of the year’ and in 2004 he was short-listed for the prestigious Turner prize.

Carol Solomon & Zoulikha Bouabdellah
Carol Solomon (Pennsylvania) is currently Visiting Associate Professor of Art History at Haverford College, Haverford, Pennsylvania. She was Curator of European Art at the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College in Massachusetts, worked at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and has taught at several prestigious universities in the US and Canada.

Zoulikha Bouabdellah (Moscow) who was raised in Algeria and who studied in Paris is a video and installation arist. Since finishing her studies in 2002, Zoulikha has been widely exhibited and major shows include L’art au fémin (2008) in Algiers and Airs de Paris (2007) in Paris. In 2007 her work was featured in the African Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale.

Leyla Fakhr & Nzagol Ansarinia
Leyla Fakhr (Isfahan) studied in London and Tehran and is assistant curator at Tate Britain and independent curator in Tehran. In 2006 she curated Untitled (do not give your opinion), an exhibition of works by Nazgol Ansarinia.

Nazgol Ansarinia (Tehran) studied graphic design in London, followed by an MFA in San Francisco. After having worked in the US and Europe, she returned to Tehran where her work focuses on everyday objects and their relationship to a larger social context. Dissecting the daily and piecing it back together to make other structures and patterns apparent often forms the core of her work.


Congratulations to the winners... one more reason to look forward to spring 2009...