Nine artists shortlisted for third Artes Mundi Prize debate many of today's big issues
27 September 2007
Man's destruction of the environment, AIDS' destruction of man and the problems of marginalised societies are just three of the issues reflected upon by the contenders for the third Artes Mundi international contemporary art prize.
Artes Mundi, Wales international contemporary arts initiative announced today the nine artists short-listed for the third Artes Mundi Prize. They are:
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Lida Abdul (based in Kabul and California);
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Vasco Araújo (lives and works in Lisbon);
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Mircea Cantor (lives in Romania and Paris);
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Dalziel and Scullion (artist duo based in Scotland);
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N. S. Harsha (lives and works in Mysore, India);
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Abdoulaye Konaté (based in Bamoko, Mali);
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Susan Norrie (based in Sydney, Australia)
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Rosângela Rennó (lives and works in Rio de Janeiro).
This third selection was made by independent curators Isabel Carlos from Portugal, the Artistic Director of the Sydney Biennale in 2004, and Olabisi Silva from Nigeria, who curated the Dakar Biennale in 2006. "Our aim was to select exciting, emerging artists who provoke and debate the fundamental questions of life and art", said Carlos.
Some of the complementary themes emerging from this diverse shortlist include that of the environment, and man's effect and relationship to it. Lida Abdul's work questions the meaning of our surroundings within the context of everyday life in Afghanistan. Matthew Dalziel and Louise Scullion explore jointly the complex relationship between mankind and the natural world, and Susan Norrie makes moving images of the link between development and the destruction of communities. Vasco Araújo explores ideas of marginality and community while Abdoulaye Konaté has created textiles that allude to the devastating effects of issues such as AIDS in Africa and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Roseângela Rennó works with found photographs, preferring to represent the 'stories of the losers' rather than tell the 'history of the winners.' N.S Harsha focuses on figures in his paintings, offering a political commentary with echoes of the formal nature of Indian miniature painting. Finally Mircea Cantor, using a wide range of media, questions the very essence of identity and meaning.
The selected artists have experienced varying levels of international exposure in their careers to date, from group exhibitions in their region to some representing their country at biennales such as Venice and Singapore as well as at Documenta XII. However, Artes Mundi gives these artists the unique opportunity to present a major body of work to a very broad audience in both the UK and internationally.
The third Artes Mundi Prize (£40,000) will be awarded at the end of April 2008. The first Artes Mundi Prize was awarded to Chinese artist Xu Bing in 2004. The second Artes Mundi Prize was awarded to Finnish artist Eija-Liisa Ahtila in 2006.
Ends.
The Shortlisted Artists:
Lida Abdul
Lida Abdul works primarily in performance and video art, posing questions about place, community and the meaning of our surroundings. Her video works include Clapping with Stones and White House that both reinterpret the nature of architecture in our surroundings and suggest alternative ways of looking at space and its cultural implications. Her works also reflect the physical changes present in her home country Afghanistan.
Interestingly, her work fuses Western formalism with aesthetic traditions such as Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism, which have influenced Afghan art and culture. At the 2005 Venice Biennale she was the first official representative for Afghanistan in the Biennale's 100 year history. For the past few years Abdul has been working in different parts of Afghanistan on projects exploring the relationship between architecture and identity.
Abdul was born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1973. She lived in Germany and India as a refugee after she was forced to leave Afghanistan after the former-Soviet invasion. She now lives and works in Kabul and Los Angeles, USA.
Her most recent work has been featured at the 51st Venice Biennale 2005; Istanbul Modern; Kunsthalle, Vienna; Museum of Modern Art Arnhem, The Netherlands and the Central Asian Biennial 2004
Vasco Araújo
Vasco Araújo works in a variety of media, including video, installation and photography,
to explore ideas of community and marginality. Gestures of seduction, cultural stereotypes, political characteristics as well as sexual identities have all been the focus of his work. It has been described as Baroque in its literary, historical and art historical references and he draws the viewer into looking at society, providing both honest as well as artificial reflections. Wigs, porcelain, film are all used to create layered meaning. His work from time to time also reflects the fact that he trained as a lyric singer before becoming a visual artist.
He studied sculpture at the University of Lisbon and then Advanced Plastic Arts at Lisbon's Maumaus School of Fine Arts and Photography. He has had solo exhibitions in Spain, Belgium, Australia, United States and Portugal and has participated in group exhibitions in Turkey, Italy, Hungary, Germany and the United States. Recent projects include an artist residency and exhibition at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in the UK and currently he is undertaking a residency at Philadelphia University of the Arts. He was one of the invited artists to Participate in the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005.
Araújo was born in 1975 in Lisbon, where he lives and works today.
Mircea Cantor
Mircea Cantor is a Romanian artist whose work is attracting increasing international attention. He works in a wide variety of media including video and photography and constantly investigates the conventions of image and object making. He often prods us to remember that immigration, national identity and wealth are pressing issues worldwide and that the experiences of the individual differ enormously. Whilst Cantor's visualising often combines layered meanings and questions, he uses multi-sensory techniques that amplify the emotional resonance of the work.
Born in Romania in 1977, Cantor studied film and video in his homeland before moving to France as a postgraduate. He now divides his time between Romania and Paris.
Solo exhibitions in 2007 include A free smile, Yvon Lambert Gallery, New York, (USA); Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Panorámica, Mexico, D.F. and Ciel Variable, FRAC Champagne Ardennes, France. In 2006 - The title is the last thing, Philadelphia Museum of Art, (USA); Burn to be Burnt, Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo, Italy and The landscape is changing, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel.
Dalziel and Scullion
Scottish artists Matthew Dalziel and Louise Scullion began their collaboration in 1993 and since then, have produced a significant body of work that has been widely shown nationally and increasingly, internationally.
Dalziel + Scullion are interested in observing the more-than-human life forms we live amongst - this is strongly influenced by their location in Scotland, whose territory they have explored through bird song, bog plains, aquatic margins and intensive farming. Their work attempts to re-immerse human experience in the depth of a living world. Working in photography, video, sound and sculpture, their work encourages us to look anew at our habitat, questioning what significance our estrangement from nature will have on our future survival.
Selected UK exhibitions include the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh; Arnolfini, Bristol; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; Manchester Art Gallery; Milton Keynes Gallery; Scottish Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; Centre of Contemporary Art, Glasgow; Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow and the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Bradford.
Internationally, exhibitions include the Venice Biennale; Young British Artists in Rome; the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; Madison Square Park, New York and the Meguro Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo.
Matthew Dalziel was born in Irvine, Scotland in 1957. He studied sculpture at Dundee and sculpture and fine art photography as a post-graduate at Glasgow School of Art. Louise Scullion, born in 1966 in Helensburgh, Scotland studied environmental art at Glasgow School of Art.
N. S. Harsha
N.S.Harsha is an Indian artist whose work reveals a political commentary within a framework of Indian miniature painting, the modern Indian narrative tradition and popular art. The figures in his delicate, sly and playful world are almost invariably focused on an event, animated by a mutual curiosity, pointing out something that is odd, incongruous or comically strange. For the viewer the wit resides as much in the scale of the depictions as it does in the finely summarised telling detail of the vignette.
Harsha's oeuvre includes painting, large scale installations and community projects. In his recent work Cosmic Orphans (2006) a site-specific painting installation at the Sri Krishnan Temple created for the Singapore Biennale, Harsha covered the entire surface of the rooftop above the inner sanctum and the floor surrounding the temple's tower with paintings of sleeping figures. Painted directly onto the floor using flat colours, the figures occupy a space not normally associated with traditional painting - their displacement provoking the audience to consider what is permitted and forbidden in relation to where they tread in the temple.
Born in 1969, Harsha lives and works in Mysore, India. He studied painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda (1995). Since then he has taken part in a variety of collaborative projects and exhibitions internationally including the Singapore Biennale 2006; the 2nd Fukuoka Asian Art Triennial 2002 and the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Arts, Australia 1999.
Abdoulaye Konaté
Abdoulaye Konaté studied painting in Bamako, Mali and then Havana, Cuba. He later combined his painting skills with installation work to make a powerful commentary on political and environmental affairs. In the 1990's he took up one of the great issues for West Africa - the encroachment of the Sahel. Since the millennium, his work depicts another - the devastating effects of AIDS on society and on individuals. His questioning of the political, social and economic scenes in contemporary Mali is evident in how AIDS, wars, ecological issues, human rights, globalisation affects all aspects of life and individuals within society. Much of his large scale work is textile-based, a medium which is more readily available than paints.
Abdoulaye Konaté has worked as a graphic designer at the Musee National in Bamako and in 1998, he was appointed Director of the Palais de la Culture. He is now Director of the Conservatoire for Arts & Media in Bamako. He has received several awards and in 2002, he received the Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mali and Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de France.
Abdoulaye Konaté was born in Diré, Mali in 1953 and lives and works in Bamako, Mali. Recent exhibitions include Documenta 12, 2007 and Africa Remix, Contemporary Art of a Continent in 2005 at the Hayward Gallery, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo and Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf.
Susan Norrie
Australian artist Susan Norrie has confronted and examined her deep held fears for our environment for over two decades. Her concern has seen her create compelling work that explores industrial damage, nuclear testing and climate change through her images of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, dust storms and toxic fires. Today she works primarily in video but her work is both visual and issue based.
Norrie was one of three artists representing Australia at the Venice Biennale in 2007. Her video installation HAVOC (2007) made in collaboration with David Mackenzie, explored the pervasive geopolitical issues of a planet in turmoil. It is an experiential work, physically immersing the audience and transporting them to an uncertain future. HAVOC was madein collaboration with David Mackenzie ( camera, editing and sound) Justin Hale ( journalist and interpreter) and Robert Hindley ( sound design, mixing).
Susan Norrie was born in Sydney, Australia in 1953. She studied at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne and the National Art School, Sydney. She was Artist in Residence at the University of Melbourne and the University of Western Sydney, Australia; Moet & Chandon Fellowship, France; Artist in residence, ( dis)location project, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany; APA, Scholarship for PhD studies, University of New South Wales, Sydney; Sally and Don Lucas Artist Residency Program, Montalvo, USA.
Rosângela Rennó
Rosângela Rennó's work is predominantly photography based, although she rarely takes photographs of her subjects. Instead, she recasts and transforms appropriated photographic images. In the past she has presented anonymous portraits compiled from existing photographs - photographers' studios and even photographs of prisoners' tattoos. Whist she finds novel and often politically charged ways of presenting the images, her work is also profoundly humane, as the viewer finds themselves imagining other people's lives, particularly those who are marginalized or unacknowledged. For Rennó, "the 'stories of the losers' are more interesting than the 'history of the winners." (© ArtForum)
Rennó's solo exhibitions include the Centro Cultural do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro; the Museu do Chiado, Lisbon; the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney; the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and the Appel Foundation in Amsterdam. She represented Brazil at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003.
Rosângela Rennó was born in Belo Horizonte, Brazil in 1962. She lives and works in Rio de Janeiro.
Notes to Editors
Artes Mundi is an international contemporary visual arts initiative, committed to recognising exciting, emerging artists from around the world whose work comments on the human condition and humanity from different cultural perspectives. Every two years our programme culminates in the major Artes Mundi Exhibition in Cardiff, Wales and the awarding of the prestigious Artes Mundi Prize. Our programme also includes visiting artist presentations, activity with schools and communities, a conference and a purchasing programme for the national collections of Wales.
Isabel Carlos is a freelance art curator and critic based in Lisbon, Portugal. She was the Artistic Director of the Sydney Biennale in 2004 On Reason and Emotion and the curator of the Portuguese Pavilion at the 2005 Venice Biennale.
Olabisi Silva is the Founder and Director of the Centre for Contemporary Art in Lagos, a new visual arts initiative that will launch later this year. She was one of several international curators responsible for the artistic content of the Dakar Biennale in 2006.
The Artes Mundi Exhibition features a body of work by each of the shortlisted artists and is presented every two years in Cardiff. It is organised by Artes Mundi in association with Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales. The shortlist is arrived at after an international nomination process and further global research by two independent selectors. A separate independent panel of five judges awards the £40,000 Artes Mundi Prize to one of the exhibiting artists. The Derek Williams Trust provides funding in order that works by some of the shortlisted artists can be purchased for the national collections of Wales.
The Artes Mundi 3 Exhibition opens at the National Museum Cardiff on March 15th 2008 and continues until June 8th 2008.
The Artes Mundi 3 Prize will be awarded in late April 2008.
Artes Mundi was founded by William Wilkins CBE (Chairman) and Tessa Jackson (Chief Executive / Artistic Director) in 2002. It was established with the support of the Welsh Assembly Government, the Cardiff Council, Arts Council of Wales, BBC Wales and Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum of Wales, all of whom remain as partners.
Sponsors of Artes Mundi 3 include Gerald Eve, sponsor of the shortlist announcement events; Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management, sponsor of the global selection process; and the St David's 2 Development, sponsor of the public engagement programme and prize awarding. Other major supporters include Arts & Business, the Foyle Foundation and the Colwinston Charitable Trust.
For further information and images contact:
Annie Bacon
Communications
Artes Mundi
E: anniebacon@artesmundi.org
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or
Nat Slow
Artes Mundi
E: natslow@artesmundi.org
T: +44 (0)2920 555300
See also the Press Room on our website at www.artesmundi.org