ABRAAJ PRIZE WINNERS ANNOUNCED; PHOTOGRAPHY BOOK COLLECTION GOES TO SCRIPPS
The selection committee of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize today announced the three recipient curator-artist teams of its first competition: Cristiana Perrella and Kutlug Ataman, Carol Solomon and Zoulikha Boubadellah, and Leyla Fakhr and Nazgol Ansarinia. Their projects, currently being created, will be unveiled during Art Dubai in March. The works will become part of the Abraaj Capital corporate collection. “By supporting artists from the MENASA region in this way, we aim to empower them as important agents of cross-cultural respect,” explained Frederic Sicre, executive director of Abraaj Capital. “With increasing awareness of our region’s rapid rate of economic development around the world, the time is right to also promote understanding and appreciation of the burgeoning art community as another important pillar of societal development,” added Sicre. “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 ninety-seven 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.”
In other news, Suzanne Muchnic reports in the Los Angeles Times that Carol Vernon and her husband, Robert Turbin, have decided to give a trove of about three thousand photographic books and journals to Scripps College in Claremont. The donation, to be used by students, faculty, and scholars, includes entire sets of periodicals and rare volumes on key figures such as Peter Henry Emerson, Diane Arbus, Walker Evans, and Ansel Adams. The donation comes after the Los Angeles County Museum of Art recently landed a collection of about thirty-five hundred photographs in a combined gift and purchase arrangement from the late Marjorie and Leonard Vernon, parents of Carol Vernon.
