Ten artists shortlisted for the Richard Mille Art Prize will display their works from 18 November 2022 to 19 February 2023 in Art Here 2022. The Richard Mille Art Prize will then be awarded to one artist. The UAE and the wider GCC received over 200 submissions from artists.
The 10 artists who have been shortlisted for the 2022 Richard Mille Art Prize by the Louvre Abu Dhabi and Swiss watchmaker Richard Mille are 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.
The artists will display their creations in the museum’s Forum in the second installment of the Louvre Abu Dhabi Art Here exhibition, which runs from 18 November 2022 to 19 February 2023.
The 2022 Richard Mille Art Prize recipient, who will also receive a cash prize of $60,000, will be revealed at the award ceremony in early 2023.
A prestigious five-member jury featuring the following artists made the selection of the shortlisted artists: HH 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 Wardé, 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.
Abu Dhabi Louvre Artists are invited to submit ideas for brand-new or pre-existing works of art that explore the concepts of icon and iconic. The displayed works of art will examine how the icon’s idea resonates in modern artistic practices and how it shapes fresh artistic viewpoints.
Fadda said: “It is an honor 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 caliber 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.”
Only 10 of the 246 submissions from artists based in the UAE and GCC that were reviewed by the renowned international jury were chosen.
With 79% of the submissions coming from the UAE, Louvre Abu Dhabi Art Here 2022 exhibits exceptional national interest. The fact that 18% of all submissions for this edition came from outside the GCC shows how the prestigious exhibition and art prize have continued to expand and develop.