• 13 years ago
The Abraaj Capital Art Prize is the art prize for artists from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia.
Uniquely rewarding proposals rather than completed works-of-art, winners are announced each October and go on to produce artworks which are unveiled the following March.
Each year five selected artists work with one international curator, culminating in an exhibition at Art Dubai and a printed catalogue.
The artworks go on to join the Abraaj Capital Art Collection.

Shezad Dawood was born in London in 1974. He received an MPhil in Fine Art Photography from the Royal College of Art (2000 – 3) before gaining his PhD from Leeds Metropolitan University in 2008. Dawood has a research based practise that employs many different art forms. The evolution of his work has become increasingly more interdisciplinary and collaborative, as part of a discursive interest in mapping territories through narrative intersections between history, literature and cultural appropriation. Following his first solo show, Shezad Dawood & Friends, held at his studio in 2006, solo exhibitions of his work have been held at: Axel Lapp Projects, Berlin (2007); The Third Line, Dubai (2008); Galleria Riccardo Crespi, Milan (2008); Galerie Gabriel Rolt, Amsterdam (2009) and Aarhus Kunstbygning, Denmark (2010). He has also participated in the following group exhibitions: Empire Strikes Back: Indian Art Today, Saatchi Gallery, London; Disorientation II, Emirates Palace, Abu Dhabi (2009); Making Worlds, The 53rd Venice Biennale (2009); Altermodern, Tate Britain (2009); Century City, Tate Modern, London (2001) and 000zerozerozero, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1999). Dawood’s works are in the collections of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, the Saatchi Collection and The Frank Cohen Collection in the UK. He is represented by The Third Line, Dubai; Paradise Row, London; Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai; Galleria Riccardo Crespi, Milan; and Galerie Gabriel Rolt, Amsterdam.