CARDIFF.- On October 26th the Artes Mundi 8 Prize and Exhibition in Cardiff opened its doors to the British public, presenting a major exhibition of works from five of the world’s most challenging and innovative contemporary artists.
The UK’s leading political art prize, Artes Mundi celebrates the work of international artists tackling the biggest issues facing our world, from near constant surveillance and entrenched racism, to industrial exploitation on a global scale and state control of individual freedoms.
Artes Mundi 8 is also the UK’s biggest art prize, with a prize fund of £40,000; the winner will be announced at an award ceremony in Cardiff on 24th January 2019.
Tackling social injustice and the human condition head on, artists in this year’s exhibition include MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Trevor Paglen (USA), whose photography interrogates the secrecy and ubiquity of US surveillance. In his series, The Other Night Sky (2007 – ongoing), Paglen has spent the last eleven years working with a network of amateur astronomers to track the more than 200 classified military satellites that orbit the earth. Paglen is also exhibiting works from his series Limit Telephotography (2005 – ongoing), documenting secret US government bases and operations, often from extreme distances.
Bouchra Khalili (Morocco/France) examines revolutionary histories and uses her work to give a platform to marginalised communities. A UK premiere for Artes Mundi 8, Twenty-Two Hours (2018), follows two young African-American women investigating how, in the 1970s, celebrated French writer Jean Genet was called to action by the Black Panther Party, and travelled secretly to the US to support their struggle for racial equality.
Cannes Palme d’Or winning filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand) is exhibiting the UK premiere of his film Invisibility (2016). The film, shown across two screens, appear dreamlike and meditative, but reveal the ghosts of Thailand’s political past, and the dark underside of political corruption that continues today.
Anna Boghiguian (Canada/Egypt) takes over the first gallery with a new monumental installation concerning the steel industry, moving past the faceless global industry and into the communities whose lives encompass it, including nearby Port Talbot, Wales.
Otobong Nkanga (Nigeria) has produced an interactive, site-specific installation, that links the west’s everyday luxuries with the core elements and minerals they’re made from. Nkanga’s installation is mirrored by a 7-metre-long tapestry that literally weaves together our materialism with industrial exploitation and the detrimental environmental impact of mass industry on African communities.
The shortlist was selected from over 450 nominations spanning 86 countries and includes five of the world’s most celebrated contemporary artists, whose works explore what it means to be human.
Karen MacKinnon, Artes Mundi’s Director and Curator, said: “Artes Mundi 8 brings together the work of five outstanding international artists. Through their work they examine urgent topical issues such as globalisation, colonialism, environmental concern, resistance, statehood and individual autonomy. Through a wide range of practices that vary from the poetic to the rhetorical, these artists all engage poignantly with what it means to be human in an increasingly tumultuous world. In works that explore the global steel trade from Port Talbot, Wales to Jamshedpur, India, the French poet Jean Genet’s work with the Black Panther movement, state surveillance, autonomy and our relationship with the earth and its resources, there is humour, surrealism and provocation. But what connects the work in this diverse exhibition is its relevance and urgency, as the artists comment on and question the spirit of the age."
The winner of Artes Mundi 8 will be announced on 24th January 20178 at an award ceremony in Cardiff. The international panel of judges for Artes Mundi 8 is chaired by Oliver Basciano; Editor (International) at ArtReview and ArtReview Asia.
The Panel includes:
Oliver Basciano, International Editor, ArtReview and ArtReview Asia
Katoaka Mami, Deputy Director and Chief Curator, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo
Laura Raicovich, independent curator based in New York City
Anthony Shapland, Creative Director, g39, Cardiff
Artes Mundi 8 selectors, Nick Aikens, a curator at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Daniela Pérez, an independent curator based in Mexico City; and Alia Swastika, a Jakarta-based curator and writer, looked for artists who directly engage with everyday life through their practice and explore contemporary social issues across the globe.
