Riyadh: Makkah mayor Dr Osama Fadl Al Bar, supervisor of the first Islamic competition to beautify Makkah, announced at a press conference in Jeddah on Wednesday night that some 442 artists from all over the world had taken part in the contest with 306 works of art submitted for the beautification of the holy city.
The competition, held under the slogan: "In Love of Makkah We Gather" was organised by Makkah municipality under the sponsorship of Governor Prince Khalid Al Faisal.
"The objective of the competition is to spread the art culture through paintings that depict the Islamic heritage of the holy city," he said adding that the competition also aims to bring Islamic artists together to exchange expertise.
Al Bar said all the participants will work together to make the corners of the holy city an open museum for Islamic art with a view to beautifying the city and enhancing society's aesthetic tastes.
He said the artwork had been classed by a secret code so that the names of the artists could not be seen and that 12 paintings had been chosen out of the 306 works of art submitted.
"A total of 152 paintings were discarded because they were not up to the standard," he added.
Special function
The mayor said the winners will be announced during a special function to be held on September 27 and their work will be displayed at an exhibition to be held September 27 to 29.
Chairman of the judging panel Dr Mohammad Saeed Farsi, former mayor of Jeddah, said 442 pieces of work were registered to be entered in the competition, but only 306 paintings had been submitted and around half of these paintings were found to be substandard.
He said the artists who submitted entries were from: Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, Qatar, Iraq, Morocco, Algeria, Turkey, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Mauritania, Somalia, Pakistan, Malaysia, China, India, Italy and the US. The judging panel consisted of renown artists, designers and experts in philosophy and fine art from Egypt, Morocco, Malaysia and Cote d'Ivoire.
