Seven artists have been shortlisted for the first Richard Mille Art Prize following an open call. Produced in partnership with Swiss watchmaking company Richard Mille, the prize aims to highlight contemporary art and artists at intervals in the region and beyond.
The shortlist includes Emirati artists Latifa Saeed and Muhammad Kazem, Lebanese-Italian artist and author Cristiana de Marchi, Palestinian artist Mays Albaik, Bahraini artist Nasser Alzayani, Palestinian-Kuwaiti visual artist Tarek Al-Ghoussein and Russian visual artist Taus Makhacheva. The artists’ work is varied across mediums from video and photography to performance and installations. The artists’ work is going to be on show in the inaugural Louvre United Arab Emirates’s capital Art Here 2021 exhibition, which will open in November. A winner will then be chosen from the seven to receive a $50,000 (Dh1,83,000) money prize. The winner will be declared throughout a souvenir ceremony to be control in the months following the exhibition opening.
The artists are selected by a four-member jury as well as Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, chairman of UAE Unlimited and an art collector and patron of the Centre Pompidou, the British depository and Sharjah Art Foundation; Christine Macel, a critic and chief conservator at the Musee National d’Art Moderne at Centre Pompidou; Hala Warde, foundation creator of HW design and long partner of Jean Nouvel, who was the lead of the Louvre United Arab Emirates’s capital project; and Souraya Noujaim, Louvre Abu Dhabi’s scientific, curatorial and collections management director.
“We were thrilled to have received a large number of proposals from artists across the UAE for this 1st edition of Louvre Abu Dhabi Art Here 2021 exhibition and the Richard Mille Art Prize. The calibre and creativity of those submissions are reflective of the UAE’s thriving art scene. We also are excited to be supporting our community of proficient artists, who are deeply engaged with the time and place in which they’re working,” said Noujaim. The Richard Mille Art Prize, which was 1st, announced in July, will be held annually.
