Artists' studio

A one year curation project by Dawood, including own solo show and production of a book documenting the project. Seven international artists were invited to produce solo exhibitions/site-specific installations within a disused apartment in Knightsbridge, each lasting five weeks. Dawood’s own solo show was the installation, 'Shezad Dawood and Friends'. Artists’ Studio utilised an empty apartment provided by a wealthy collector over a one year period to curate a programme of

projects by established international artists, to question notions of value, process, architecture and domesticity. Dawood invited

artists to stay in the space and develop projects as a direct response to the architecture and context of the space. Its location in

Knightsbridge, at the opposite end of the real estate market from where art is normally produced, deliberately confused the site

of production with that of consumption, as part of an analysis of a broader system of exchange of value.

All seven artists (Riccardo Previdi, Khalil Rabah, Szuper Gallery, Shilpa Gupta, Marko Maetamm, Guillaume Paris, Shezad

Dawood) were well established in their own careers - with previous projects at the Sao Paolo, Liverpool, Sydney, Havana,

Istanbul and Venice biennales to their credit – and yet in each case Artists’ Studio was their first major solo show in London and

was a new commission.

Dawood’s own solo show, which created a simulation of the Bolivian jungle at the time of Che Guevara’s capture and execution,

developed his ongoing research into the legacy of avant-garde theatre and its relevance to strategies in contemporary art. It

included three new video works.

The programme was rigorously selected by Dawood, involving consultation with an advisory board he appointed. He raised

funding (£54000) from both private and public sources (including AHRC and ACE), in order to commission new installations for

the site. He ran half-page colour adverts for each exhibition in ‘Frieze’. He produced a book, with essays by Lewis and Le

Feuvre, documenting the project.‘Artists’ Studio’ received considerable press attention, including Art Asia Pacific, Art Review,

Dazed & Confused, The Guardian.