The Samdani Art Foundation has announced its shortlist for the fourth Samdani Art Award. A biennial prize, the award seeks to support, promote and highlight Bangladeshi contemporary art by emerging Bangladeshi artist between the ages of 22 and 40.
The 11 shortlisted artists will be invited to show newly commissioned work in an exhibition at the Dhaka Art Summit (2–10 February 2018), guest curated by Simon Castets, director of the Swiss Institute in New York. The award will be presented at the summit by Tate director Maria Balshaw, and selected by a jury comprised of artists Sheela Gowda, Runa Islam, Subodh Gupta, and Mona Hatoum. The Samdani Art Award winner will receive a three-month residency with the Delfina Foundation in London.
Castets has said in a statement released by the foundation: ‘The quality, scope and urgency of most works made the task of curating a group of 11 positions to articulate in the group exhibition exceptionally challenging. While no sweeping curatorial statement would do justice to the breadth of artistic endeavors at play, it can be said that all undertake careful examinations of their respective contexts through poignant vocabularies.’
The shortlisted artists include:
Ahmed Rasel
Aprita Singh Lopa
Asfika Rahman
Debasish Shom
Marzia Farhana
Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury
Opper Zaman
Palash Bhattacharjee
Rakib Ahmed
Reetu Sattar’s
Sabbir Alam
19 June 2017
