March 25, 2015

Basel Abbas, a graduate student in The City College of New York’s digital and interdisciplinary art practice MFA program, is a co-winner of the 2015 Sharjah Biennial Prize. The international award is given out by the United Arab Emirates-based Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF). 

Abbas, a Harlem resident, and his collaborator, Ruanne Abou-Rahme, won for their work “The Incidental Insurgents (2012–15),” a three-part mixed-media installation that the SAF jury said “spatialises a contemporary search for a new political language and imaginary.”

It will be presented as a solo exhibition at the Office for Contemporary Art Norway in Oslo opening April 8. 

Other Sharjah Prize winners this year are American filmmakerEric Baudelaire, Spanish multimedia artist Asuncion Molinos Gordo, Argentine sculptor Adrián Villar Rojas and, posthumously, the Turkish artist Fahrelnissa Zeid.

Launched in 1993 and offering up to $30,000 in total to winners, the prize rewards artists for their “contribution to the cultural landscape of Sharjah and the Middle East.” Sharjah is one of the states that make up the United Arab Emirates.

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Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided low-cost, high-quality education for New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. More than 16,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in: the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture; the School of Education; the Grove School of Engineering; the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education, and the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership. U.S. News, Princeton Review and Forbes all rank City College among the best colleges and universities in the United States.

MEDIA CONTACT

Jay Mwamba
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e: jmwamba@ccny.cuny.edu