DUBAI: Saudi artist Mohammad Alfaraj won an Art Basel Gold Award on Sunday.
Art Basel Miami Beach awarded Alfaraj the honor. The awards ceremony was hosted by producer and art collector Kasseem “Swizz Beatz” Dean.
The 2025 Gold Awardees were selected through a peer-nominated process and reviewed by an international jury.
The judges included Director of Perez Art Museum Miami Franklin Sirmans, Artistic Director of Serpentine, London, Hans Ulrich Obrist, and Museum Director of M+, Hong Kong, Suhanya Raffel.
Alfaraj was awarded the Emerging Artists prize alongside Uzbek film director Saodat Ismailova.
This year, Alfaraj also won an Emerging Artists’ Medal at the Art Basel Awards in Switzerland.
His first institutional solo exhibition is running until January at Jameel Arts Center in Dubai, having opened in the summer.
Titled “Seas Are Sweet, Fish Tears Are Salty,” the multimedia show incorporates found objects as well as organic materials indigenous to Alfaraj’s hometown of Al-Ahsa, including palm fronds and dates.
