Iman Issa
Heritage Studies
21 May–28 June 2015
Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA)
Plaça dels Àngels 1
Barcelona
Spain
Iman Issa was the winner of the first Han Nefkens Foundation-MACBA contemporay art award
Iman Issa (b. 1979, Cairo) uses non-physical material in her work, relying on fiction while exacerbating the tension between objects and the words, names and adjectives used to describe them. In the words of the art critic Kaelen Wilson-Goldie: “In one sense, Issa’s work is about radical subtraction. Take the experience of a city, a structure, a monument, a memorial, a campaign poster, a political conflict, an open space, or an evocative story; then strip down the specificities and delete the defining details.” Issa uses conventional museological displays such as vitrines, plinths, captions, labels and vinyl text to create frameworks for her objects and narratives, that exist outside of a particular time or place. In her work, history becomes an exercise in an ahistorical storytelling that can concern us all.
Iman Issa lives and works in Cairo and New York. At the end of 2012 she won the first Han Nefkens Foundation-MACBA award. The aim of this award is to help consolidate the work of artists who, despite a consistent career, are not yet recognised by the international artistic community, and to support international contemporary creation in Barcelona. In the words of the artist, “it has been a pleasure to meet Han Nefkens, as well as understand and learn more about the origins and implications of his work and Foundation. It is a real honour to receive this award.”
About the award
The Han Nefkens Foundation-MACBA Award, worth 50,000 EUR, was created with the aim of consolidating Barcelona as an international capital of contemporary art. It is aimed at artists previously selected by a group of ten artistic talent scouts. The actual president is the Belgian curator Hilde Teerlinck, who also works as a curator and art critic. “When you share you’re not alone”: this philosophy led the writer and patron Han Nefkens, a Dutchman now living in Barcelona, to found the Han Nefkens Foundation in 2009 to promote artistic production in the fields he is most passionate about: visual arts, literature and fashion. The Foundation carries out its objectives through residency programmes, awards, scholarships and collaborative projects with other entities in Catalonia, the Netherlands and Thailand.
Second HNF-MACBA award
The winners of the second HNF-MACBA award of contemporary art were announced yesterday. The Iranian collective consisting of Ramin & Rokni Haerizadeh and Hesam Rahmanian are the winners of the award by decision of the jury, which consisted of: Hanru Hou, artistic director of MAXXI, Rome; Beatrix Ruf, director of the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, critic and writer, Beirut; Han Nefkens, Han Nefkens Foundation; Bartomeu Marí, Director of MACBA.
