The Kamel Lazaar Foundation is pleased to announce the launch of its website www.kamellazaarfoundation.org.
Since its inception in the late 1990s, the Kamel Lazaar Foundation has been active in collecting contemporary Arab art and supporting artists in the production of their work.
The Foundation is dedicated to providing a platform for visual culture in the Maghreb and Middle Eastern region. Through research and publishing initiatives, support for exhibitions, conferences, educational seminars, the development of its collection, an artists’ research initiative, and an emerging artist’s prize, the Foundation will develop sustainable forms of cultural dialogue and debate within the region and beyond.
The Foundation’s website is fully translated into Arabic. It will function as a resource for students and practitioners across the region and as a platform for the development of commissioned projects by artists working in North Africa and the Middle East.
Acknowledging that artistic activity today is increasingly research-based and involved in the processes of knowledge production, the Kamel Lazaar Foundation Projects initiative will commission six to ten artists per year to develop and document their research-based activities.
In its pilot year, the following assembly of artists have been invited to participate: Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Michael Rakowitz, Marwa Arsanios, Ala Younis, Haig Aivazian, Slavs and Tatars, Wafaa Bilal, Amina Menia and Nadia Kaabi-Linke.
The initiative works to engage with the Internet, in partnership with one of the Foundation’s initiatives, Ibraaz Publishing (www.ibraaz.org), as a generative space for the creation of new artistic and curatorial projects, whilst also providing a platform to showcase the processes of knowledge production and research involved in creative practices.
See the full list and details of the Kamel Lazaar Foundation Projects.
The Kamel Lazaar Foundation is currently cataloguing its entire collection so that it will be available online and is also in negotiations to build the first purpose-built contemporary art centre in Tunisia.
The centre will house the Foundation’s collection, which includes works by Ziad Antar, Kader Attia, Ayman Baalbaki, Yto Barrada, Ahmed Alsoudani, Mona Hatoum, Mounir Fatmi, Amel Kenawy, Walid Raad, Zineb Sedira, and Latifa Echakhch, amongst others, whilst also providing a venue for residencies, workshops, conferences, and an international meeting point.
On the Foundation’s website launch, Mr. Lazaar commented that he was ‘extremely pleased to be sharing the Foundation’s initiatives with a broader audience and hopes it will contribute to the quality of cultural knowledge in the Maghreb and enhance the role of arts and culture in the development of our societies.’
Read the interview with Mr. Lazaar for a full history of the foundation and its mission.
For further information, please contact info [at] kamellazaarfoundation.org.
