ART HERE. ART NOW. IN THE UAE.
Be part of the new exhibition and art prize for UAE-based artists, an initiative by Louvre Abu Dhabi in collaboration with Richard Mille

A NEW STAGE FOR UAE-BASED ARTISTS
With Swiss watchmaker Richard Mille, we are opening an annual exhibition and art prize that illuminates the extraordinary contemporary art scene in the UAE. We are creating a new stage at Louvre Abu Dhabi for our regional artists, giving them a platform to be seen and heard, and a space in which to express themselves and come together.

EXHIBIT YOUR ARTWORK AT LOUVRE ABU DHABI
If you are an artist from or working in the UAE, we want to hear from you. We invite you to submit a proposal in response to our exhibition thematic: ‘Memory, Time and Territory’. Your proposal, which can be a new or existing artwork, should reflect on how collective memory relates to questions of space and time. Our jury of international art experts will be selecting four to six artists to exhibit in the Forum of Louvre Abu Dhabi from 18 November 2021 until 27 March 2022.

RICHARD MILLE ART PRIZE
The jury will award one of the selected artists with the Richard Mille Art Prize. The winner will receive a prize of 50,000 USD.

H.H. Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan

H.H. Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan graduated from the University of St. Andrews in 2011 receiving his Master of Arts with Honours in Middle Eastern Studies and Modern History.

Sheikh Zayed is Chairman of the Board of Directors of Alliances for Global Sustainability (AGS) and also serves on several non-profit boards, including Make A Wish Foundation-UAE. He is Chairman of the Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan Humanitarian and Scientific Foundation, and also chairs the Board of Trustees for the Sultan bin Khalifa Thalassemia International Award.

A prominent patron and collector of the arts, Sheikh Zayed is the founder and chairman of the satellite art platform UAE Unlimited that supports emerging local artists based in the UAE.

Sheikh Zayed is also a board member of the British Museum and Centre Pompidou for the acquisition of Middle Eastern Art.

Dr. Souraya Noujaim

Director of the Scientific, Curatorial and Collections Management Department, Louvre Abu Dhabi, UAE

Dr. Souraya Noujaim was appointed the first Scientific, Curatorial and Collections Management Director at Louvre Abu Dhabi in February 2018. She oversees and leads the curatorial strategy of the museum, the new developments of its narrative, the acquisition and research strategy as well as the exhibition programming. Noujaim is closely involved in the transfer of knowledge which contributes to training new young curators. Prior to her assignment, she was the lead curator at the Agence-France Muséums responsible for the scientific and cultural programming of Medieval and Islamic art.

Noujaim began her career at Musée du Louvre and has since worked for major cultural institutions such as the Arab World Institute (IMA) and the British Museum. As part of the “Grand Louvre” project, she took part in the opening of the first Islamic Art Department rooms of Musée du Louvre and in landmark exhibitions at Musée du Louvre and Grand Palais. She has taught at the École du Louvre for several years where in 2013 she held the Islamic Art History chair.

Souraya Noujaim holds a Ph.D. in Islamic Art History and Archaeology, with a degree in Museum studies and postgraduate research diplomas from École du Louvre and Paris- Sorbonne University. She also studied Arabic Islamic civilization at the INALCO.

Christine Macel

Born on February 13, 1969, Christine Macel is a French Art Historian and Curator and a General Curator of Heritage, and serves as the Head of the Contemporary and Prospective Creation Department at the Musée national d’art moderne, which she established upon arrival at the Centre Pompidou in 2000.

At the Centre Pompidou, Macel serves as a Chief Curator of numerous monographic exhibitions (for Raymond Hains, Nan Goldin, Sophie Calle, Philippe Parreno, Gabriel Orozco, Anri Sala, Franz West, Takesada Matsutani, Erika Verzutti and Jeremy Shaw) and other collective exhibitions (such as “Dionysiac” (2005), “Airs de Paris : Mutations dans la ville et la vie urbaine” (2007), “Les Promesses du passé, l'art à l'Est de l'Europe” (2010), “Danser sa vie en 2011 avec Emma Lavigne”, “Une Histoire - Art, architecture, design des années 1980 à nos jours” (2014) and “Elles font l'abstraction” (2021)).

Curator of the Belgian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale for Eric Duyckaerts (2007) and of the French Pavilion for Anri Sala (2013), Macel served as an Art Director of the 57th Venice Art Biennale “Viva Arte Viva” in 2017.

Author of numerous essays and catalogs, Macel explored in her essay, entitled “Le Temps pris” (2008) and republished by Flammarion in 2020, the notion of time and work of arts. She has, also, made contributions in numerous magazines, such as Artforum, Flashart, Parachute, Art Press, Parkett and Cahiers du Mnam, among others, and taught – for 5 years – contemporary art at the École du Louvre (1997-2002), while taking part in the creation of various relevant associations relating to contemporary arts (such as Espace Blank in Paris), to neurosciences (such as AoN in Berlin) or even to techno music and heritage (such as Faste in Paris).

Hala Warde

Born in Lebanon in 1965, Hala Wardé trained as an architect at the Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris where she studied with Paul Virilio, Bernard Tschumi and Jean Nouvel, with whom she worked for over 20 years.

In 2008, Hala Wardé established HW architecture, her own architectural practice, and continued collaborating with Ateliers Jean Nouvel in the framework of a privileged partnership. Hala Wardé was in charge of the One New Change office and retail project in London, delivered in 2010, and the Louvre Abu Dhabi landmark museum which she led from inception in 2006 through to delivery in 2017.

In 2016, Hala Wardé won the architectural competition for BeMA (Beirut Museum of Art), a future landmark museum in the Lebanese capital. In 2018, her studio was selected to design “Le Mirabeau” in the maritime quarter of Marseille, currently under construction.

In 2019, she wins together with Jean Nouvel the competition for the ‘Sharaan resort’ located near by the historical site of Al Ula in Saudi Arabia.

In parallel, Hala Wardé collaborates regularly with artists, for site-specific interventions in relation to the built environments, such as Guiseppe Penone, Etel Adnan and most recently Nan Goldin for the exposition Visible/Invisible at the Palace of Versailles.
Hala Wardé is the curator of the Lebanese Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021 with the project “A Roof for Silence”.

ABOUT RICHARD MILLE
Richard Mille and Louvre Abu Dhabi share the values of excellence in innovation, creativity, mastery and savoir-faire. The Richard Mille Art Prize will redefine the benchmarks of contemporary creativity, with a goal to offer exceptional artists the opportunity to create a new dimension of their potential.
For more about Richard Mille, Please visit richardmille.com