Art prize unveiled, spam emails are a highlight

Art Dubai opened in characteristically rapturous fashion today - 75 galleries from 32 countries, hauling work by around 500 artists into the ballrooms of Madinat Jumeirah (read our rundown of where you need to put yourself during this four-day event right here)

But concurrently with the press and VIP launch came the unveiling of this year's Abraaj Capital Art Prize-winning works. And, we're happy to say, it's a clear step-up from previous iterations of the prize.

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With five winning projects in total, giving money to artists so that they can fulfil the more extravagant works they have in mind, the 2012 edition looks and feels tight. Whereas previously the winning works were sited in the rather awkward location of canal-front Madinat Jumeirah, the ACAP team has moved the prize inside, giving the works the gravitas they need.

Applicants submit proposals with a deadline of March each year. Winners are announced in October, and artists then have until the following Art Dubai to produce their final piece. 

The winners for this year's prize are:

• Taysir Batniji (Palestine)
• Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige (Lebanon)
• Wael Shawky (Egypt)
• Risham Syed (Pakistan), work The Seven Seas pictured below (image courtesy of ACAP)
• Raed Yassin (Lebanon)

Hadjithomas and Joreige's work particularly stands out here. The artists, working in collaboration, have collected 13 years' worth of spam and scam emails. Interested in storytelling and accessing narratives that have become submerged in our collective consciousness, they have selected a 100 of these emails and had non-professional actors perform them as if they were a script. 

On a rear projector screen, the camera pans over the actors used for the piece, while in the foreground another projector shows a ghostly image of one of these monologues taking place.

"Spam emails come from a long tradition, going all the way back to the 16th century," said Khalil Joriege, when we spoke to him at last night's exhibition opening at The Third Line. "But after the French Revolution, people would send out these scam letters from prison, saying how they were the servant to a master who had buried their treasure during the Revolution and just needed some money to start recovering it."

"The idea was to write another kind of history," says Hadjithomas. "If you follow these emails for the last 10 years, all the major events are embedded in them: Gaddafi, the death of Yasser Arafat, African dictators that come and go. You can read it as a new story of the world, but written in a medium that you usually send to Trash."

Not only does the piece show the almost artistic sense of melodrama that scammers are able to create, but the actors used bring a believable resonance to each of these monologues penned in crocodile tears. Believe me, the imposter descendent of an ousted opposition leader in Guinea-Bissau can really lay it on thick.

The fair continues until Saturday, and opens to the public tomorrow. Make sure to drop by the Abraaj Capital Art Prize section near the main entrance to Madinat Jumeirah.

www.abraajcapitalartprize.com