Samdani Art Foundation

A not for profit Art infrastructure development organization, founded by the Group Managing Director Rajeeb Samdani and Nadia Samdani, Director Golden Harvest Group to promote Bangladeshi contemporary art to the International Arena. The Foundation collaborates with the Bangladeshi government through official partnerships with the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, the principal state-sponsored national cultural center of the country and the Ministry of Cultural Affairs. The Foundation collaborates with the Bangladeshi government through official partnerships with the Faculty of Fine arts, University of Dhaka, and the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, the principal state-sponsored national cultural center of the country. The Samdani Art Foundation has supported international institutions such as the Kunsthalle Basel, the 2nd Kochi Biennale, and the 56th International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia, however the Foundation is not a grant making body and generally works with curatorial collaborations on an institutional level. The Foundation produces the bi-annual Dhaka Art Summit (DAS), which is now in its fourth edition and exists as the world’s largest non-commercial research and exhibition platform for South Asian Art. The Foundation collects art from all over the world, and the collection of 300+ works is available for audiences in Dhaka to view on a daily basis (by appointment). Works from Documenta, the Venice Biennale, Liverpool Biennale have a permanent home in Bangladesh, and the foundation will open a public art center in Sylhet, Bangladesh, in 2018 (phase 1). Works from the collection are also being exhibited internationally on loan to institutions such as the Centre Pompidou, Gwangju Biennale, Kunsthalle Basel, and the Kochi-Muziris Biennale.

Samdani Art Foundation also gives bi-annual Samdani Art Award to a young and emerging Bangladesh based artist who is between the ages of 20 and 40. In 2012, there were two winners, Khaled Hasan and Murat Reazi. In 2014, the winner was Ayesha Sultana and the winner for 2016 is Rasel Chowdhury.

Through-out the year the foundation also conducts Samdani Seminars, a series of seminars and workshops by visiting curators and artists.

Rajeeb and Nadia Samdani were recognized on the 2015 Top 200 Collectors list by Artnews, the Power 100 list in 2015 and 2016 by Art Review and The World’s Top 100 Art Collectors 2016 by ArtNet News.

For more information please visit: Samdani Art Foundation