Today, Frieze named Adham Faramawy as the recipient of the 2023 Artist Award at Frieze London, realised in partnership with Forma for the fifth consecutive year. The Artist Award allows an artist to debut an ambitious new commission at Frieze London at a formative moment in their career. As part of the fair’s anchor programme of special initiatives and collaborations, the accolade has been a cornerstone of Frieze’s artist-led projects over the past two decades and seen recipients such as Himali Singh Soin (2019), Alberta Whittle (2020), Sung Tieu (2021) and Abbas Zahedi (2022).
Celebrating the 20th anniversary of Frieze London this year, Frieze will introduce a series of new initiatives, including special section Artist-to-Artist, alongside the debut of Fatos Üstek as curator of Frieze Sculpture. Frieze London will take place concurrently with Frieze Masters in The Regent’s Park from October 11-15, 2023. Both fairs are supported by global lead partner Deutsche Bank, continuing two decades of shared commitment to artistic excellence.
Initiated over 15 years ago, with an illustrious list of recipients, the Frieze Artist Award has proved an invaluable platform for early-career artists. The award reflects Frieze London’s ongoing commitment to championing new voices, a tenet that is woven into the fair’s programming. The jury strongly endorsed Faramawy for their prescient, compelling video installations that sit at the intersection of migration and ecology. I would like to express my gratitude to Forma for their continued collaboration on this important initiative.
Eva Langret, Director of Frieze London,
The winning commission was selected by a jury of leading industry figures, comprising Andrew Bonacina (Independent Curator), Carmen Juliá (Curator, Spike Island), Eva Langret (Director of Frieze London), Chris Rawcliffe (Artistic Director, Forma) and Abbas Zahedi (Winner of the Frieze London Artist Award 2022).
Titled And these deceitful waters, Faramawy’s video and sculptural assemblage will examine the history of the Thames, its underground tributaries and the plants along its banks as a way of exploring the river as a colonial artery and a site of ecological collapse. Employing a three-person dance performance with music and spoken word, the winning commission will tell the migration stories of the river and its flora,
surveying how they build national identity and can construct, reinforce and dissolve borders. The work will weave tales together, illustrating how land becomes tangled into projects of nation-building, colonisation, ecological collapse, toxicity and migration. Faramawy’s project will be installed at the entrance to Frieze London.
About the artist
Adham Faramawy is an artist of Egyptian descent based in London. Their work spans media including moving image, sculptural installation, photography, print and painting engaging with concerns of materiality, touch, the body and toxicity to question ideas of the natural in relation to marginalised communities.
Faramawy has screened work at the Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tate Modern and Tate Britain, London; Serpentine Gallery, London and Serpentine Ecologies Symposia, London. Their recent exhibitions include Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Arts, London; Somerset House, London; Buffalo University Gallery, Buffalo; the Bemis Center, Omaha; Niru Ratnam Gallery, London (solo), and Cell Projects, London (solo). They were shortlisted for the Film London Jarman Award 2017 and 2021.
