Exhibition
Antonio Paucar, Viaje en una Alfombra Alada, 2015–2023, video still. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Barbara Thumm.
Artes Mundi 11 (AM11) with Presenting Partner: Bagri Foundation, will for the second time be presented across Wales at five nationwide venues, Aberystwyth Arts Centre in Aberystwyth; National Museum Cardiff and Chapter in Cardiff; Glynn Vivian Art Gallery in Swansea, and Mostyn in Llandudno, providing even greater opportunities for national and international audiences to experience the show. The AM11 exhibition will comprise significant solo presentations of new and existing work of six of the world’s most important international contemporary artists.
All artists will be represented in a group presentation at National Museum Cardiff, acting as a central focal hub including ambitious new productions and major museum loans that speak to the fundamental core of each artist’s practice. The group show will allow thematic dialogue to be revealed between each artist, rooted in personal histories and storytelling that examine issues of loss, memory, and migration with consequent trauma and environmental cost. This will be augmented by in-depth solo exhibitions across the country:
- Jumana Emil Abboud (born Shefa’amer, lives and works in London, UK and and Jerusalem) exhibiting at Mostyn, Llandudno.
- Anawana Haloba (born Livingstone, lives and works in Oslo, Norway and Livingstone, Zambia) exhibiting at Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth.
- Kameelah Janan Rasheed (born East Palo Alto, lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA) exhibiting at Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea.
- Sancintya Mohini Simpson (born Brisbane, lives and works in Brisbane, Australia) exhibiting at Chapter, Cardiff.
- Antonio Paucar (born Huancayo, lives and works between Berlin, Germany and Huancayo, Peru) exhibiting at Mostyn, Llandudno.
- Sawangwongse Yawnghwe (born Shan State of Burma, lives and works in Amsterdam, the Netherlands) exhibiting at Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth.
The Artes Mundi 11 Prize jurors are Marie Helene Pereira, Senior Curator of Performative Practices, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Sohrab Mohebbi, Director, SculptureCenter, New York; and Zoe Butt, Founder/Director, in-tangible institute, Thailand, Lead Advisor (South East Asia and Oceania), Kadist Art Foundation, Paris/San Francisco and Academic Advisor, TIMES Museum, Guangzhou.
Artes Mundi receives multi-year funding from the Arts Council of Wales.
For AM11, our Presenting Partner is the Bagri Foundation.
Artist profiles and statements
Antonio Paucar
Through his performances, sculptures and video works, Antonio Paucar creates an artistic language that draws upon his origins in Andean culture through rituals and interventions. Dialogue with indigenous ancestral knowledge is often set in critical tension with Western culture to address issues such as contemporary conflict, the assassination of indigenous leaders and climate change. The core of Paucar’s practice lies in his poetic and poignant performances in which he creates a dense body of readings. Concentrated actions and movements in natural and urban public spaces conjure intense imaginary worlds, loaded with symbolic readings.
Jumana Emil Abboud
Jumana Emil Abboud’s practice seeks to unlock connections between people, characterised through examinations of oral histories in relation to landscape as sites of memory and imagination, despite often conflicted and political contexts. Since 2020, this centres on an expanding body of works rooted in collaborative Water Divining production and community workshops. Drawing, sculpture, video and spoken-word performance are used to address how water sources are globally liminal places. Steeped in folklore and associations with the supernatural, they survive contemporary changes in land use, occupation and dispossession, and community life. Myths and storytelling are drawn upon to celebrate local and shared heritage and identify interconnectedness between people.
