NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery announces 2022 programme

The NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) Art Gallery has announced two major exhibitions for Spring and Fall 2022, in addition to projects globally, including the National Pavilion UAE at Biennale Arte 2022 in Venice, and the UAE’s 50th-anniversary exhibition at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC.

On Tuesday, 1st March, The gallery will open Parthenogenesis: Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh, Hesam Rahmanian. The artists, originally from Iran, have adopted the UAE as their home. They are known for their immersive, surreal projects, performances, paintings, and animations, which have been exhibited internationally, at multiple biennials and major museums (including Liverpool, Sydney, and Toronto biennials, and Kunsthalle Zurich, ICA Boston, MACBA Barcelona, and a forthcoming project at the Hayward Gallery, London).

In their first institutional solo exhibition in the UAE, the artists create a landscape in the gallery that traces how an artwork grows through an artist’s relationships with others. Parthenogenesis is a testament to their 13 years in Dubai as artists living and working together, creating a landscape and tapestry of continuously evolving ideas and dialogues with collaborators, artists, and visitors to their homes.

Fall 2022 will feature Khaleej Modern, a landmark historical survey of the last century of modern art movements across the Gulf Cooperation Council states, collectively known as the "Khaleej." Curated by Dr. Aisha Stoby – who was recently announced as curator of the inaugural Oman Pavilion to the Venice Biennale – Khaleej Modern is based on her research, tracing the region’s pre-"boom era" of the early/mid-20th century through 2008. Dr. Aisha Stoby is an art historian and curator who has published and lectured widely on modernism in the Global South, particularly interested in modern art movements in the Arabian Peninsula.

In addition to this year’s programme, Executive Director of The Art Gallery, Maya Allison, is curating the National Pavilion UAE at the Biennale Arte 2022 in Venice, which opens on 23rd April. The project grows out of her long series of curatorial collaborations with the artists. Titled Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim: Between Sunrise and Sunset, this significant new installation of human-sized, abstract, and organic sculptural forms draws from Ibrahim’s deep connection to the local environment of his hometown of Khor Fakkan, on the rocky eastern coast of the UAE. Ibrahim is one of the UAE’s leading experimental artists and an influential member of the historical group of experimental, conceptual artists who have led the vanguard of visual art in the UAE since the 1980s.

Commenting on the 2022 programme, Allison said, "I am deeply gratified to see the many ways that, in 2022, we will celebrate and make visible existing art histories and investigate art practices that flourish beyond traditional art world frameworks. Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim is a veteran experimental artist rooted outside the urban centres of the region, while Dr. Stoby’s ground-breaking research shows that clusters of artistic communities have thrived throughout the modern Gulf, often as informal, self-supported collectives, as she will trace in Khaleej Modern. I am compelled by the depth and complexity of the work of these artists, long-recognised by their peers, but only now entering the canons of modern global art history."

"Similarly, for our partnership with the Middle East Institute in Washington D.C., both the curator, Munira Al Sayegh, and the artists she selected for their current exhibition all thrive in the context of present-day UAE’s art scene. That ecosystem includes the artists in our Spring exhibition. I look forward to welcoming audiences to discover the radical rethinking of artistic practice by Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh, Hesam Rahmanian, who have found inspiration in their art community of the UAE. Supporting the research of scholars such as Dr. Stoby, Al Sayegh, and the art practice of Ramin, Rokni, and Hesam, together makes up a core tenet of The Art Gallery’s mission, both in championing and growing the work of artists and in documenting the journey that led us to this moment," she added.

Meanwhile, The Art Gallery’s current exhibition, Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby Weed Grey Collection, is open until 5th February.