The King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra) is excited to announce the fourth edition of the Ithra Art Prize is open for submissions. The Ithra Art Prize is presented in partnership with Ad-Diriyah Biennale Foundation, and the winning artwork will be unveiled at the inaugural Ad-Diriyah Biennale, the Kingdom’s first biennale. Entry is open to all Saudi and Saudi-based contemporary artists, as well as artists from or based in the 22 Arab League countries. The prize includes up to 100,000 USD for the winner to create a unique world-class work of art, making it one of the most significant art prizes in the world.
The deadline for submitting proposals to the 2021 Ithra Art Prize has been extended to Saturday, August 21, 2021. A jury of local and international leaders in the art world will evaluate the proposals and announce the winner on Monday, August 30. The winning artwork will be unveiled at the Ad-Diriyah Biennale in Riyadh on Tuesday, December 7, and will then join Ithra’s prestigious permanent art collection.
The seven-member Ithra Art Prize jury comprises academics, historians and experts in the field of contemporary art: Abdullah K. AlTurki, board member of the Ad-Diriyah Biennale Foundation; Dr. Ridha Moumni, historian of art and archaeology specializing in antiquity and early and modern art, and an Aga Khan Fellow of Islamic Architecture at Harvard University; Brahim Alaoui, former director of the museum of the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris who has been a member of various international juries, including the Venice Biennale in 1999; Salwa Mikdadi, Director of Al Mawrid Arab Center for the Study of Art (NYUAD) and Associate Professor in Practice of Art History at NYU Abu Dhabi; Amal Khalaf, curator, artist and Director of Programs at Cubitt and Civic Curator at the Serpentine Galleries in London as well as a founding member of The Art Collective, GCC; Clare Davies, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Farah Abushullaih; Head of Museums and Exhibits at Ithra.
One of the most significant art prizes in the world, the Ithra Art Prize at Ad-Diriyah Biennale supports the development of the art industry in the Kingdom and beyond while fostering cross-cultural engagement through the exposure of talent from the Arab world on an international platform.
UAE-based Saudi artist Ayman Zeidani’s project Meem won the inaugural edition of the Ithra Art Prize in 2018. The second winner, in 2019, was Dania Al-Saleh’s Sawtam, which breaks down language into phonemes using multimedia visual and auditory displays. Most recently, Fahad Bin Naif won the 2020 prize for his artwork Rakhm, which evokes agricultural nurseries in the Kingdom and incubates indigenous vegetation instead of traditional house plants.
For more information on the Ithra Art Prize and how to apply, visit here.
