Jameel Prize 4
By HG Masters
It was a strange morning for a press preview of the Jameel Prize 4 in Istanbul: a car bomb had destroyed a bus carrying police officers in the historical district, a little over an hour earlier. Events continued as scheduled, however, as 10 of the 11 artists and designers who were nominated for the biannual prize were in attendance at the Pera Museum to talk about their works, which had been selected from more than 200 nominations received from all parts of the world, from Mali to Puerto Rico to Thailand. Later in the day, a jury comprising Rose Issa, Ece and Ayşe Ege, winners of last year's Jameel Prize, artist Alan Caiger-Smith, Hammad Nasar of Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong and V&A director Martin Roth, chose Ghulam Mohammad as the winner of the GBP 25,000 prize. Established in 2009 in a partnership between the V&A in London and Art Jameel, a Saudi Arabia and Dubai-based foundation that supports initiatives promoting art from Muslim countries and the Middle East (including Edge of Arabia), the Jameel Prize has more of a contemporary art focus in the current edition, although the elements of design were integral to many of the works. Arabic typography, Islamic geometry and architecture, miniature painting, and the history of the region were explored across a diverse range of media. Here’s a quick look at some of the projects by the artists shortlisted for Jameel Prize 4.
The exhibition is on view at the Pera Museum in Istanbul until August 14.
HG Masters is editor at large of ArtAsiaPacific.
