Kamrooz Aram awarded Abraaj Group Art Prize 2014

DUBAI, UAE - June 15, 2013 - PRLog -- Green Art Gallery is pleased to announce that NY-based Iranian artist Kamrooz Aram has been selected as one of the five winners of Abraaj Group Art Prize 2014, alongside artists Abbas Akhavan, Anup Mathew Thomas, Basim Magdy and Bouchra Khalili. The artists will now start working closely with the selected Guest Curator for 2014, Nada Raza (Pakistan). She has the responsibility of supervising the production of the artworks, their display at Art Dubai (from March 19 - 22, 2014), and the publishing of an annual catalogue.

The Selection Committee for the prize comprises leading experts in the field of the visual arts including: Antonia Carver, Director, Art Dubai; Dana Farouki, Patron; Salwa Mikdadi, art historian and curator; Jessica Morgan, Daskalopoulos Curator, International Art, Tate; Glenn Lowry, Director, the Museum of Modern Art; and Murtaza Vali, The Abraaj Group Art Prize 2013 Guest Curator.

Kamrooz Aram’s diverse practice often engages the complicated relationship between traditional non-Western art and Western Modernism. Through a variety of forms including painting, collage, drawing and installation, Aram has found the potential for image-making to function critically in its use as a tool for a certain renegotiation of history.

Kamrooz Aram (born 1978, Shiraz) received his MFA from Columbia University in 2003. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Kamrooz Aram/Julie Weitz at The Suburban, Chicago, Illinois (2013); Brute Ornament: Kamrooz Aram and Seher Shah, curated by Murtaza Vali, at Green Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE (2012); Negotiations at Perry Rubenstein Gallery, New York, New York (2011); Generation After Generation, Revolution after Revelation at LAXART, Los Angeles, California (2010) and Kamrooz Aram: Realms and Reveries at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, Massachusetts (2006). He has shown in numerous group exhibitions including roundabout, City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand (2010); the Busan Biennale (2006); P.S.1/MoMA’s Greater New York 2005; and the Prague Biennale I (2003). Aram has been awarded grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts (2004) and the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship Program (2001-2003). His work has been widely featured and reviewed in publications such as The New York Times, Art in America, Artforum.com, ArtAsiaPacific, The New Yorker, The National and Bidoun. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

About the Abraaj Group Art Prize:

The Abraaj Group Art Prize was founded in 2008 and is now in its sixth edition. The aim of the prize is to reflect Abraaj Group’s dedication to empowering potential in the region, giving talented artists the opportunity to break new ground and showcase the rich artistic and cultural heritage of the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia region. It rewards chosen artists from The Middle East and North Africa on the basis of a proposal rather than completed works-of-art. The winning artists then go on to create the works. The Prize is aimed at curators and artists working together as opposed to a single artist. To date, the 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 works were unveiled at Art Dubai and artworks have been exhibited at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York; City Hall, London; MAXXI, Rome; Galleria Civica, Modena; Future of a Promise, collateral event of the 54th Venice Biennale; Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), Dubai and the Maraya Arts Centre, Sharjah.

About Green Art Gallery

Green Art Gallery is a contemporary art gallery based in Dubai, UAE. Representing a multi- generational mix of artists, the Gallery's program is focused on contemporary artists from the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, Turkey and beyond, working across different media, traditional and new, who employ a research based approach. Artists represented include Turkish artist Hale Tenger, NY-based Iranian artist Kamrooz Aram, NY-based Palestinian artist Shadi Habib Allah, Venezuelan artist Alessandro Balteo Yazbeck, NY-based Pakistani artist Seher Shah, Hungarian artist Zsolt Bodoni and Iranian artist Nazgol Ansarinia.