BMW Group France announces the first winning duo of BMW ART MAKERS, its new patronage programme in the field of visual arts and contemporary image-making.

Paris. Artist Arash Hanaei and curator Morad Montazami have been named as winners of the BMW ART MAKERS programme. Following a call for applications, a shortlist was created by the jury members and the BMW ART MAKERS team, after which ten artist-curator duos were interviewed via video conference.

The jury unanimously selected the artist-curator duo Arash Hanaei and Morad Montazami who won them over with their project entitled “Hantologie post-urbaine” (“Post-urban hauntology”). The dialogue fostered by the two applicants demonstrated their synergy and the importance of the curator’s contribution through his ability to take a step back when considering the chosen subject. The jury was impressed by the first series presented in the application that display the decision to create an installation that combines various visual systems and a masterful deep-dive into a futurist universe.

“Hantologie post-urbaine” is a project that invites us to rethink our relationship with the utopian architecture of the 1960s and 1970s and the urban ecosystem of the suburbs that host them. This work is made up of still and moving computer images, evoking the digital culture through which architectural ghosts pass. Their socio-political ideal remains in a dream state, but lingers on through their physical substance. The emphasis is on two parallel worlds: the suburbs around the city and the virtual world created by big data.

“As winners of the 2022 BMW ART MAKERS programme, we are honoured by the trust placed in us to successfully create an innovative installation that proposes poetry and a visual policy that considers the spectator’s emancipation, in an era of image “capture”, big data and algorithmic warfare.” Arash Hanaei & Morad Montazami

The BMW ART MAKERS programme will enable them to carry out this project.
Two heads are better than one. This partnership draws on the strength of a strong, like-minded duo to generate the trust and competitive spirit required for completing a major project from the initial idea to the end work. Alongside the artist, the curator performs the roles of artistic director, scenographer and designer and ensures the project is completed to artistic standards, timeframe and budget.

“The human-machine relationship, creativity, innovation, support and commitment are all key BMW Group values. In these unpredictable times, this new art patronage programme speaks for itself: this artist-curator duo sparks an emotional conversation with our society and offers a different take through experimentation. We are looking forward to seeing what Arash Hanaei and Morad Montazami have created in relation to the post-urban and post-internet world,” Maryse Bataillard, Head of Corporate Communications and CSR, BMW Group France.

The shortlist and trends selected by the BMW ART MAKERS jury.
The jury, made up of Florence Bourgeois, Director of Paris Photo, Hervé Digne, President of Manifesto, Chantal Nedjib, Founder of L’image par l’image, and Christoph Wiesner, Director of the Rencontres d'Arles, was supported in the selection process for the first BMW ART MAKERS programme by renowned figures in visual arts: Léa Bismuth, exhibition curator and art critic, Jérôme Poggi, Galérie Jérôme Poggi, Nathalie Mamane Cohen, Vice-President of Friends of the Centre Pompidou, and Maryse Bataillard, Head of Corporate Communications and CSR, BMW Group France

In this new programme, the jury members will also act as mentors and will monitor the project’s development throughout its creation process.

The ten shortlisted duos were selected from 125 applicants who submitted a proposal including a statement of intent, a budget and a production schedule, scenography and images of their prior works. These 125 applications demonstrated a wide range of profiles and work. 43% of applicant duos were mixed, 35% were all-female and 22% all-male. 47% were French and 53% international, from more than thirty countries worldwide.

The major trends that emerged reflected social issues. Many projects considered the environment and in particular trees and water. Society was the focus of proposals on post-colonialism, feminism, disease and its resilience. Technology was also a common theme, with a particular emphasis on artificial intelligence.

Biographies of the winners 
Arash Hanaei is an artist who lives and works in Paris. After growing up and studying in Tehran, he developed a practice that combines several techniques and media. His series of “digital drawings” entitled Capital (2009-2016) is a critical map of the city of Tehran following  the Iran-Iraq war. His work gradually shifted from documentary practices to inter-media speculations and post-internet strategies. With the series Cyclothymia of a Land, Hanaei further provokes dialectic thought between urban cityscapes and digital landscapes, heightening his art of the visual palimpsest (including modernist architecture, accounts of war or attacks, video games, etc.). In recent years, his work has been displayed in solo exhibitions: Poush Manifesto (Paris), Yassi Foundation (Tehran), Goethe Institute (New York), etc. He has also contributed to group exhibitions: Paris Museum of Modern Art (Paris), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Potsdam Art Space (Potsdam), MAXXI (Rome), etc. His works are displayed in several international collections: LACMA Museum (Los Angeles), Centre national des arts plastiques (France), Paris Museum of Modern Art (Paris), Peters-Messer (Berlin), Salsali Museum (Dubai), etc.

Morad Montazami is an art historian, editor and exhibition curator who lives and works in Paris. After a period at the Tate Modem in London from 2014 to 2019 as curator specialising in the “Middle East and North Africa”, he developed the editorial and curating platform Zamân Books & Curating which studies and promotes Arab, African and Asian modernities. He has also written many essays on artists such as Zineb Sedira, Walid Raad, Latif Al Ani, Faouzi Laatiris, Michael Rakowitz and Mehdi Moutashar, and was behind exhibitions including Bagdad Mon Amour, Institut des Cultures d’Islam, Paris, 2018; New Waves: Mohamed Melehi and the Casablanca Art School, The Mosaic Rooms, London/MACCAL, Marrakech/Alserkal Arts Foundation, Dubai, 2019- 2020; Douglas Abdell: Reconstructed Traphouse, Cromwell Space, London, 2021; Monaco-Alexandria. The Great Detour. World-Capitals and Cosmopolitan Surrealism, Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, 2021-2022.