Lawrence Abu Hamdan, One of the Four 2019 Turner Prize Winners, Will Explore Reincarnation With a Coveted New Commission

Artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan, one
of the joint winners of the 2019
Turner Prize, has won an accolade all his own.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art
and the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo announced today that the
Jordan-born, London-based artist has been awarded the 2022
Future Fields Commission in
Time-Based Media, making him
the first non-American recipient of the prize. Abu Hamdan will receive $125,000 for the
production of a newly commissioned work, which will debut at the
Philadelphia Museum of Art in spring 2022, followed by the
Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin that
winter. 

Abu Hamdan rocketed to international art stardom in recent years
for his deeply researched sound art. His works have examined the
use of speech analysis by UK immigration authorities, exposed the
growing field of voice analysis and lie detection, and explored
legal cases that revolved around evidence heard through walls. The
artist, who describes himself as a “private ear,” brings his
background in music to his multidisciplinary art practice, which
now spans film, installation, and live performance.

The new
commission will
continue in the vein of the politically minded, immersive
installations for which he has become known, but the
project—tentatively titled How to Hear Impossible Speech: Lessons from the
Division of Perceptual Studies—also marks a notable shift in Abu Hamdan’s
research.

While his Turner Prize-winning
2018 work, Walled Unwalled, tracked the reverberation
of speech through physical walls, his latest project, inspired by
the concept of reincarnation, will explore how speech transforms
across time. 

“It’s a new body of work that
I’ve been developing since working on ear-witness investigations,
in which I’ve kind of taken a new track,” Abu Hamdan explained to
Artnet News. “And it’s about multiple works, actually, of which
this commission is one part, that deal with the speech of and the
testimony of reincarnated subjects, people coming back from the
dead and their testimonies from their previous lives.… It’s really
about the political possibilities opened up by listening to the
voices of the returned.”

For Timothy Rub, the
Philadelphia Museum’s director, the commission will provide
American audiences a new opportunity to acquaint themselves with
the artist’s provocative work. “Their encounter with his work will
undoubtedly strike an unsettling, yet sympathetic chord,” Rub said,
“as it asks us to consider our place in the world and our
relationship with other cultures.”

Originally established in 2016,
the Future Fields commission is awarded to artists pushing the boundaries in
video, film, performance, and sound. Lawrence Abu Hamdan is
the third recipient. He succeeds Rachel Rose and Martine Syms,
whose exhibition will open in Turin this spring before traveling to
Philadelphia in fall 2020. 

The Philadelphia Museum of
Art and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo will jointly acquire Abu
Hamdan’s work after its debut. “This is a very serious
investment in a new project,” the artist said. “It’s come at a
particular moment where the focus of what I’m interested in have
slightly shifted, so that’s very exciting. It’s really encouraging that artists are able
to shift their focus and mediums and that it can be
supported.”

The post Lawrence Abu Hamdan, One of the Four 2019 Turner
Prize Winners, Will Explore Reincarnation With a Coveted New
Commission appeared first on artnet News.