As part of its commitment to support an exciting new generation of artists, the Foundation announces artists Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze, Mercedes Dorame and Emmanuelle Lainé as the recipients of its Artist Commission Program for 2018.

Awarded annually, the program enables emerging artists to produce new works within the context of an institutional exhibition, a biennale, or an art festival. With a focus on diversity and inclusivity, it is geographically inclusive and open to all forms of contemporary artistic practices.

The work of Nigerian-born Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze will be presented at the 33rd Bienal de São Paulo in the fall of 2018, American artist Mercedes Dorame’s commission will first be seen at at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles in 2018, while the commission created by French artist Emmanuelle Lainé will be presented at the HENI Project Space, Hayward Gallery in London in the fall of 2018. Following their initial presentation, the commissioned artworks will join the Foundation’s contemporary art collection in Hamburg.

The recipients of the Artist Commission Program were selected by the Montblanc Cultural Foundation’s Curatorium consisting of Anne Barlow (Director, Tate St. Ives), Sunjung Kim (Director, Gwangju Biennale), Jean de Loisy (President, Palais de Tokyo), Franklin Sirmans (Director, Perez Art Museum), Jochen Volz (Director, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paolo), and Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath (Chairmen, Montblanc Cultural Foundation). The Program was first launched in May 2017 with the support of a new commission by Manila-based artists Katherine Nuñez and Issay Rodriguez. Their installation, In Between the Lines, was shown as part of the main exhibition Viva Arte Viva at the 57th Venice Biennale.

In speaking about the recipients, Montblanc Cultural Foundation Chairmen Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath said: “The selection acknowledges the work of three incredibly talented artists who, each in her own way, have been pushing the formal boundaries of their respective disciplines. We hope that the Program will serve as a platform to connect their work to a wider audience.”

Montblanc CEO Nicolas Baretzki added: “Giving artists both the freedom and a platform to express themselves is at the heart of the Montblanc Cultural Foundation’s purpose. It is a privilege to support three talented artists working in such diverse cultural contexts. Their work exemplifies Montblanc’s belief that when art is given free reign to flourish, it can enthrall and inspire audiences with its boldness, disruptiveness and creativity.”

Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze was born in Nigeria and lives in New York and Philadelphia. She earned her M.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. In her practice, large-scaled and multi-dimensional drawing is part of an ongoing, yet non-linear narrative that employs the malleability of space as the primary antagonist. Borrowing roots from architecture, design, dance, migration histories and non-nationalist politics, the manipulation of space functions as a poetic and playful alternative to fixed identities and geographies. Fluidly navigating fictional and conflating worlds, a cohort of aliens, hybrids and ghosts access magic as their mundane norm.

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