Samdanis On ArtReview's Power 100 list
Bangladeshi art collectors Nadia and Rajeeb Samdani have been named in the Power 100 List of 2015 by renowned British art magazine ArtReview. They are the first Bangladeshis to make it to the most prestigious list of the movers and shakers of the art world.
Founded in London in 1949, ArtReview is a prestigious London-based international contemporary art magazine that covers both established and emerging artists through international exhibition reviews, artist profiles, city art tours and artist commissions. The Power 100 list is an annual feature of the magazine – a record of the 100 most prominent and powerful art figures in the world of contemporary art.
ArtReview's this year's list which includes 27 gallerists, 25 artists, 13 museum directors, curators, art fair directors, collectors, art school directors and philosophers from all over the world. This year's Power List was divided in 10 categories, among which the Samdanis were named in the collector category, for “building an art scene in Bangladesh through Dhaka Art Summit”.
The list includes prominent names like gallerists Iwan & Manuela Wirth and Larry Gagosian; museum directors Hans Ulrich Obrist & Julia Peyton-Jones and Nicholas Serota; artists Ai Weiwei, Marina Abramovic, Jeff Koons, Gerhard Richter and collectors like Francois Pinault, Bernard Arnault and Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani. From India, Riyas Komu and Bose Krishnamachari were also honored with a mention for their work on the Kochi Biennale.
Talking to The Daily Star, Nadia Samdani termed it a huge honour for Bangladesh, and said their target now is to stay on the celebrated list in the coming years. She also informed that the New York Times has published an interview with the couple titled “Putting Bangladeshi Art on the Map”, and said such recognitions are always a drive to do more in the field of arts.
The Samdanis are the founders of Dhaka Art Summit, which boasts to be the largest noncommercial South Asian art platform in the world. The third edition of the Dhaka Art Summit is slated for February 2016, where five international museum curators -- from Centre Pompidou, Tate, Rubin Museum, Guggenheim and Kunsthalle Zurich -- are working under the direction of the Foundation's Artistic Director Diana Campbell Betancourt in curating independent exhibitions. The event is being hosted in collaboration with Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, and about 57 international institutions have joined the Summit as partners, including Harvard University, World Bank, Davidoff Foundation and Pro Helvetia.