Upcoming Programs
Unless otherwise noted, programs are free of charge, no reservations, capacity limited. All are subject to change. Photo ID required for entrance to NYU buildings.
Webinar Series
Taking Shape: New Perspectives on Arab Abstraction
Session 2: Arab Abstraction and Arabic Letterforms
Session 2 of 3. Iftikhar Dadi, Associate Professor of History of Art, Cornell University, and Nada Shabout, Professor of Art History, University of North Texas, will explore how the artists in Taking Shape “reterritorialized” the Arabic alphabet and made its aesthetic more accessible to the larger world, not only in detaching Arabic letterforms from Islamic calligraphy and religious history but also in liberating them from their semantic functions. In stripping Arabic letters of their former meanings, artists enabled them to signal modern (pan-)Arab identity and the decolonization of culture. Moderated by Pepe Karmel, Associate Professor of Art History, New York University.
Webinar Series
Taking Shape: New Perspectives on Arab Abstraction
Session 3: Modern Art in Algeria and Egypt
Session 3 of 3. Between the 1950s and the 1980s, Arab countries were transformed through decolonization, the rise of nationalism, socialism, rapid industrialization, and wars and mass migrations. At the same time, artists were revitalizing their practices, finding inspiration in Arabic calligraphy, geometry and mathematics, and local topographies. Hannah Feldman, Associate Professor of Art History, Northwestern, will focus on abstract art in Algeria; and Alex Dika Seggerman, Assistant Professor of Islamic Art History, Rutgers University–Newark, on figurative art in Egypt. Moderated by Sarah-Neel Smith, Assistant Professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism, Maryland Institute College of Art.
Past Programs
Webinar Series
Taking Shape: New Perspectives on Arab Abstraction
Session 1: The Barjeel Art Foundation and “Taking Shape”
Session 1 of 3. Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi, founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation, will discuss this independent, UAE–based initiative, which he established in 2009 to study, preserve, and exhibit modern art from the Arab world, and to foster critical conversations about regional modernisms. Suheyla Takesh, a curator at Barjeel and co-curator of Taking Shape, will discuss her role in organizing the exhibition, framing her investigation of modernism’s development in mid-20th century North Africa and West Asia within today’s rethinking of the canon of abstract art. Moderated by Lynn Gumpert, director of NYU’s Grey Art Gallery and co-curator of the exhibition.
Webinar
Highlights from the NYU Grey Art Gallery’s Collection of Modern Asian and Middle Eastern Art
Join the NYU Grey Art Gallery’s Lynn Gumpert, Director, and Michèle Wong (STEINHARDT ’80), Associate Director | Head of Exhibitions and Collections, in a discussion and virtual tour of the highlights of NYU’s unparalleled and unique Abby Weed Grey Collection of Modern Asian and Middle Eastern Art.
Webinar
Alt-Text as Poetry
Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, Eyebeam, and Grey Art Gallery at New York University present Alt-text as Poetry, an online workshop developed by Shannon Finnegan and Bojana Coklyat, and led by Finnegan. This online webinar reframes alt-text as a type of poetry, using language that is pared-down, yet expressive. Writers Amelia Bande, Candystore, and Kimberly Drew will describe artworks and event documentation images—those most often found on institutional websites—and have their texts workshopped, learning from one another’s strategy and techniques.