Held every two years in Cardiff, Artes Mundi is the UK’s largest contemporary art prize. Although the award has been based in the Welsh capital since its inception in 2003, its reach has become global. Former prize winners include Mexico’s Teresa Margolles, Israel’s Yael Bartana, and Theaster Gates from the US, who rather graciously shared his £40,000 prize with the other finalists when he won in 2014.
I am not a contemporary art expert, although I try my best to engage with it. I trot along to Tate Modern when I’m in London, keep an eye on the Turner Prize and regularly pop into Bristol’s Arnolfini arts centre to see what’s new. But despite my best efforts, I remain fairly ignorant about contemporary art, so I arrive at Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Caerdydd (National Museum Cardiff) with an open mind and a sense of mild trepidation.
The glory of Artes Mundi is that it’s free to visit, so it should tempt many novices like me to dip their toes into these murky conceptual waters.
Artes Mundi accepts nominations from curators, museum and gallery directors, and members of the public. Nominated artists must “directly engage with everyday life through their practice and explore contemporary social issues across the globe”. This broad brief has led critics to comment that previous shows have lacked coherence. This year’s show is smaller than 2014’s, with just six artists represented rather than the usual 10. The full line-up is: John Akomfrah (UK), Neïl Beloufa (French-Algerian), Amy Franceschini and Futurefarmers (US), Lamia Joreige (Lebanon), Nástio Mosquito (Angola/Belgium) and Bedwyr Williams (Wales).
Cohesive themes
If the 2014 prize seemed disjointed to critics, definite threads of continuity run through 2016’s show: Beloufa and Mosquito both playfully address geopolitics and international relations; Williams and Joreige explore the urban environment; and mass movement of people and crops link the work of Akomfrah and Franceschini.
Some of the pieces are dazzling. Williams’s Tyrrau Mawr/Big Towers (2016) is projected on to a huge gallery wall in a darkened room. The film imagines a futuristic mega-city built around a lake in north Wales. Skyscrapers tower incongruously over the water as dusk falls and mist creeps across the surface of the lake.
A laconic narration, delivered in a gently lilting Welsh accent, describes the development of the city, from the dream of an idealistic architect (tragically killed, we learn, by a jet of concrete during the construction of the Spa and Wellness Centre) to the metropolis we see before us. The piece is a gentle, comic comment on urban development, displacement and gentrification.
Joreige’s work examines themes of urban landscape, memory, and loss through the story of the National Museum of Beirut. With parts of its collection lost or looted during years of conflict, the Lebanese artist questions the museum’s place in Lebanon’s national story. The accompanying video piece, Nahr/River, depicts the dry bed of Beirut’s river, a derelict area now home to migrant communities, but earmarked for use by property developers.
For me, an outstanding piece is Auto da Fé (2016), a diptych film by Akomfrah. The British Ghanaian filmmaker is best known as one of the founders of the Black Audio Film Collective, and has been making work dealing with themes of race, identity, and post-colonialism for three decades. Filmed with the lush aesthetics of a period drama, Auto da Fé draws parallels between eight historical migrations over the past 400 years, starting with the 1654 exodus of Sephardic Jews (those descended from Jews who lived in the Iberian peninsula in the late-15th century) from Brazil to Barbados and ending with present-day migrations from Mali and Iraq. The piece is hauntingly beautiful, and has a powerful resonance with the current refugee crisis.
The presentation by Franceschini and Futurefarmers, displayed next to Akomfrah’s, also explores maritime journeys. A huge embroidered ship’s sail hangs in the gallery, and cases display material related to the Flatbread Society project, in which seeds of grain used to make bread will be transported from Europe to the Middle East, where they originated thousands of years ago. Along the way, diverse communities will come together to bake bread.
I find Beloufa’s presentation one of the more inaccessible parts of the show. Non-professional actors are divided into teams and given parts in a geopolitical role play, in which they discuss imagined scenarios. The resulting film is projected over a moving, textured resin wall that distorts the faces of the actors. The artificiality of the scene is darkly comic, but I’m left a little nonplussed.
Surprising end
The plot thickens as I arrive at Chapter arts centre to see Mosquito’s The Transitory Suppository. In the middle of the gallery a crate containing boxes of suppositories lies next to a crumpled parachute. In the next room plastic tables are littered with beer bottles, while a TV shows Mosquito playing the role of AL Moore, the fictional despot of the imaginary country of Botrovia.
I am peering cautiously at the suppositories when the gallery attendant approaches and casually offers me a packet, which I tentatively accept.
The box advertises “Quintuplet Action”; alongside promises to “soothe” and “protect”, it claims to “awake God”. I put it in my bag and retreat to the cafe.
I enjoyed my novice’s foray into the exotic world of Artes Mundi 7. It offered mischievousness, scope, ambition and aesthetic beauty, and left me with some meaty ideas to consider. Above all, it is commendable that Artes Mundi is bringing work of such a high calibre to Wales, and that entrance is free.
Still, I think more could be done to bridge the gap between visitors inexperienced in the ways of contemporary art and the sometimes extremely challenging work on display. I very much appreciated the brief discussion of Mosquito’s work that I shared with the suppository-wielding gallery attendant, and I wonder whether there could be scope to orchestrate more interactions like this.
National Museum Cardiff is offering a daily tour of the exhibition for free. That seems like an excellent start.
Zoe Dennington is the head of visitor experience at the American Museum in Britain, Bath
Main funders Arts Council of Wales; Cardiff Council; Colwinston Charitable Trust;
Foyle Foundation; Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museum Wales); Welsh Government; Chapter
Exhibition design and lighting National Museum Cardiff
Installation In house
Interpretation Artes Mundi
Audiovisuals National Museum Cardiff; Canon
Graphic design Polar 10
Graphic production ACT Reprographics; 10four Design
Contractors Traxium
Admission Free
I am not a contemporary art expert, although I try my best to engage with it. I trot along to Tate Modern when I’m in London, keep an eye on the Turner Prize and regularly pop into Bristol’s Arnolfini arts centre to see what’s new. But despite my best efforts, I remain fairly ignorant about contemporary art, so I arrive at Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Caerdydd (National Museum Cardiff) with an open mind and a sense of mild trepidation.
The glory of Artes Mundi is that it’s free to visit, so it should tempt many novices like me to dip their toes into these murky conceptual waters.
Artes Mundi accepts nominations from curators, museum and gallery directors, and members of the public. Nominated artists must “directly engage with everyday life through their practice and explore contemporary social issues across the globe”. This broad brief has led critics to comment that previous shows have lacked coherence. This year’s show is smaller than 2014’s, with just six artists represented rather than the usual 10. The full line-up is: John Akomfrah (UK), Neïl Beloufa (French-Algerian), Amy Franceschini and Futurefarmers (US), Lamia Joreige (Lebanon), Nástio Mosquito (Angola/Belgium) and Bedwyr Williams (Wales).
Cohesive themes
If the 2014 prize seemed disjointed to critics, definite threads of continuity run through 2016’s show: Beloufa and Mosquito both playfully address geopolitics and international relations; Williams and Joreige explore the urban environment; and mass movement of people and crops link the work of Akomfrah and Franceschini.
Some of the pieces are dazzling. Williams’s Tyrrau Mawr/Big Towers (2016) is projected on to a huge gallery wall in a darkened room. The film imagines a futuristic mega-city built around a lake in north Wales. Skyscrapers tower incongruously over the water as dusk falls and mist creeps across the surface of the lake.
A laconic narration, delivered in a gently lilting Welsh accent, describes the development of the city, from the dream of an idealistic architect (tragically killed, we learn, by a jet of concrete during the construction of the Spa and Wellness Centre) to the metropolis we see before us. The piece is a gentle, comic comment on urban development, displacement and gentrification.
Joreige’s work examines themes of urban landscape, memory, and loss through the story of the National Museum of Beirut. With parts of its collection lost or looted during years of conflict, the Lebanese artist questions the museum’s place in Lebanon’s national story. The accompanying video piece, Nahr/River, depicts the dry bed of Beirut’s river, a derelict area now home to migrant communities, but earmarked for use by property developers.
For me, an outstanding piece is Auto da Fé (2016), a diptych film by Akomfrah. The British Ghanaian filmmaker is best known as one of the founders of the Black Audio Film Collective, and has been making work dealing with themes of race, identity, and post-colonialism for three decades. Filmed with the lush aesthetics of a period drama, Auto da Fé draws parallels between eight historical migrations over the past 400 years, starting with the 1654 exodus of Sephardic Jews (those descended from Jews who lived in the Iberian peninsula in the late-15th century) from Brazil to Barbados and ending with present-day migrations from Mali and Iraq. The piece is hauntingly beautiful, and has a powerful resonance with the current refugee crisis.
The presentation by Franceschini and Futurefarmers, displayed next to Akomfrah’s, also explores maritime journeys. A huge embroidered ship’s sail hangs in the gallery, and cases display material related to the Flatbread Society project, in which seeds of grain used to make bread will be transported from Europe to the Middle East, where they originated thousands of years ago. Along the way, diverse communities will come together to bake bread.
I find Beloufa’s presentation one of the more inaccessible parts of the show. Non-professional actors are divided into teams and given parts in a geopolitical role play, in which they discuss imagined scenarios. The resulting film is projected over a moving, textured resin wall that distorts the faces of the actors. The artificiality of the scene is darkly comic, but I’m left a little nonplussed.
Surprising end
The plot thickens as I arrive at Chapter arts centre to see Mosquito’s The Transitory Suppository. In the middle of the gallery a crate containing boxes of suppositories lies next to a crumpled parachute. In the next room plastic tables are littered with beer bottles, while a TV shows Mosquito playing the role of AL Moore, the fictional despot of the imaginary country of Botrovia.
I am peering cautiously at the suppositories when the gallery attendant approaches and casually offers me a packet, which I tentatively accept.
The box advertises “Quintuplet Action”; alongside promises to “soothe” and “protect”, it claims to “awake God”. I put it in my bag and retreat to the cafe.
I enjoyed my novice’s foray into the exotic world of Artes Mundi 7. It offered mischievousness, scope, ambition and aesthetic beauty, and left me with some meaty ideas to consider. Above all, it is commendable that Artes Mundi is bringing work of such a high calibre to Wales, and that entrance is free.
Still, I think more could be done to bridge the gap between visitors inexperienced in the ways of contemporary art and the sometimes extremely challenging work on display. I very much appreciated the brief discussion of Mosquito’s work that I shared with the suppository-wielding gallery attendant, and I wonder whether there could be scope to orchestrate more interactions like this.
National Museum Cardiff is offering a daily tour of the exhibition for free. That seems like an excellent start.
Zoe Dennington is the head of visitor experience at the American Museum in Britain, Bath
Project data
Cost UndisclosedMain funders Arts Council of Wales; Cardiff Council; Colwinston Charitable Trust;
Foyle Foundation; Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museum Wales); Welsh Government; Chapter
Exhibition design and lighting National Museum Cardiff
Installation In house
Interpretation Artes Mundi
Audiovisuals National Museum Cardiff; Canon
Graphic design Polar 10
Graphic production ACT Reprographics; 10four Design
Contractors Traxium
Admission Free
