Setting The Scene

The second instalment of the Richard Mille Art Prize was further proof of how the watchmaker has helped establish a thriving regional arts scene

The stage was set at the gala ceremony to announce the winner of the Richard Mille Art Prize 2022. But like everything else Richard Mille creates, this was no ordinary stage. With Louvre Abu Dhabi as its backdrop — Jean Nouvel’s magnificent modern marvel — the boundary-pushing watchmaker dreamt up an enchanting midnight garden to celebrate the blossoming of the region’s art scene. Artistry abounded under the stars. Acclaimed dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied took to the stage for the first time since 2016, performing an Abu Dhabi-inspired routine with fellow dancer Caroline Osmont that was choreographed specifically for the event, while the Michelin-rated chef Grégoire Berger served up a dazzling dining experience for the assembled audience of art connoisseurs and regional personalities.

But the evening belonged to Rand Abdul Jabbar, the Iraqi-born, Abu Dhabibased multidisciplinary artist whose clay-sculpted work, Earthly Wonders, Celestial Beings, was selected by the panel of five eminent judges (among them HH

Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, Chairman of UAE Unlimited, an art collector, and a patron of the Centre Pompidou, the British Museum, and Sharjah Art Foundation) to win the $60,000 first prize.

Comprising 100 handmade objects, Jabbar’s work “emerged out of my research into ancient Mesopotamian artefacts, architecture, and mythology. Overall, the work attempts to capture and convey the reverberations of the past within a contemporary sculptural language. The choice of working with clay further reinforces connections to ancestry, as well as the material culture and embodied knowledge that form part of my cultural inheritance as an Iraqi,” says Jabbar, who left Beirut as a child when her family moved to Abu Dhabi.

Was a total of 100 objects always the target, or did Jabbar gravitate towards that number as the project developed? “I see this collection of ceramic sculptures as an ever-growing family. I enjoy the process of making them, I find it quite meditative. It’s also a process that is endlessly generative, drawing on a rich history of cultural vestiges spanning thousands of years, which makes it full of discovery. Exhibiting 100 objects as part of this exhibition [Louvre Abu Dhabi Art Here 2022, which preceded the award ceremony] was a milestone I wanted to achieve at this particular moment, and I hope there will continue to be more.”

The objects form a mix of the recreated and the reimagined. Do certain pieces particularly resonate with the artist?

“Several years ago during my research I found a photograph of an ancient pin — just a beautiful, elegant, thin, sharp object. I created a lino cut of it and printed it alongside a photograph of my father as a young boy, riding a long, slender boat called a mashhoof on a visit to the marshes in southern Iraq. I found there was an interesting formal dialogue happening through the interplay between these two objects.

“A couple of years later, while I was working on this project, I went through my archive of images and this pin came up again, so I decided to replicate the gesture in ceramics. When I took my father to the exhibition, he saw this object and said it reminded him of the mashhoof. This particular piece means a lot to me because it holds a personal memory, but it’s just one example of many, and they each have their own story.”

Jabbar’s own story wasn’t destined to feature art. “I actually trained to be an architect,” she reveals. “I consider my educational background in architecture as providing the foundations for the way I work, both in the way it’s conceptually grounded in rigorous research, as well as its material engagement in shaping space and form. Design, as an act, pervades both art and architecture, and unites them in their pursuit of describing an intention. However, what I enjoy about artistic practice is the more direct involvement and proximity it affords me in the process of crafting materials, drawings, objects or sculptures.”

Jabbar’s award win marks the second instalment of the Richard Mille Art Prize, continuing the avant-garde watchmaker’s commitment to showcasing contemporary artists from the region, cultivating talent. “Richard Mille has been enriching relationships with the art world for over a decade,” says Peter Harrison, CEO, Richard Mille EMEA. “The GCC is home to one of the most evolving art scenes globally, and at an unprecedented pace. As a brand, we are privileged to witness the extraordinary growth of this region firsthand, and we have been eager to support its burgeoning art scene for quite some time now.”

An art lover and collector himself, Harrison describes how during his frequent visits to the region he was struck by “always finding myself discovering contemporary art pieces that were created by Arab artists in the GCC. This built a curiosity, to understand how these artists were being represented, and if their art was being given the opportunity to grow outside the region.”

This curiosity prompted Harrison to discuss the topic with Louvre Abu Dhabi, from which a ten-year partnership between Richard Mille and Louvre Abu Dhabi emerged, the annual Richard Mille Art Prize its flagship initiative. “The Richard Mille Art Prize represents a significant addition to the types of opportunities available to artists in the UAE and the wider GCC region,” says Jabbar. “It not only spotlights the work of artists, but also, through its thematics, allows for the expansion of discourse and engagement around contemporary artistic practice.”

The theme of the third edition of the Richard Mille Art Prize and the Louvre Abu Dhabi Art Here exhibition for 2023 is ‘Transparency’. Curated by Maya El Khalil, it is open now to entries. louvreabudhabi.ae/arthere