Upcoming Programs

Join us for the opening reception of Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby Weed Grey Collection.

How do politics, diplomacy, and other worldviews influence both private collecting and exhibition organizing? What factors enter into a curator’s selection of works for a show? How do museums and other institutions help shape a collector’s identity? These questions and more will be considered by speakers Sean Anderson, Associate Curator of Architecture and Design, Museum of Modern Art; Beth Citron, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rubin Museum of Art; and Saloni Mathur, Professor of Art History, UCLA. Moderated by Lynn Gumpert, Director, Grey Art Gallery, NYU.

Exhibition walkthrough with Noel W. Anderson, Art & Art Professions (Steinhardt), NYU, who will focus on prints in the exhibition.

Speakers Duygu Demir, PhD candidate in the History, Theory, and Criticism of Art and Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Sonal Khullar, Associate Professor of Art History, University of Washington; and Hamed Yousefi, filmmaker and PhD student in Art History, Northwestern University, will present their perspectives on artistic modernism in the 1960s and ’70s in Turkey, India, and Iran, respectively. Exploring the political context of modernist art in the period’s global imaginaries, they will examine the circulation of modernist discourses between these regions and the West—and also reveal how such exchanges, at both regional and global levels, produced new forms of modernist art. 

Panel discussion moderated by Susan Hapgood, Executive Director, International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), New York, and Founder, Mumbai Art Room; with speakers Hadieh Shafie, artist, and Hamed Yousefi, filmmaker and PhD student in Art History, Northwestern University, who will explore the relevance to and influence of the archive in terms of contemporary art-making and art-historical research.

Exhibition walkthrough with Ally Mintz, Exhibitions and Publications Manager, Grey Art Gallery, NYU.

Ali Mirsepassi, Albert Gallatin Research Excellence Professor of Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies in NYU’s Gallatin School and Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, will present this documentary, which he co-created with Hamed Yousefi. The film explores the life and thought of Iranian philosopher Ahmad Fardid (1910-1994) in his intellectual crusade to halt rising Western influence in Iran. 85 min.

Exhibition walkthrough with Summer A. Sloane-Britt, Graduate Curatorial Assistant, Grey Art Gallery, and PhD student, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU.

Working in the aftermath of the 1979 Revolution, contemporary Iranian women artists are embracing themes of gender identity, repression, religion, and memory. In this panel, speakers will also discuss the complexities of cultural duality and the nuances of an evolving artistic discourse. Moderated by artist Shirin Neshat.

This symposium organized by Matthew S. Santirocco, Professor of Classics and Angelo J. Ranieri Director of Ancient Studies (NYU), will bring together a panel of speakers to explore the history and archaeology of ancient Persepolis—along with its revival in the modern era, in the visual imaginations of artists such as Parviz Tanavoli and others. **Time to be announced; detailed schedule forthcoming after October 1.**

In this talk, Sarah-Neel Smith, Assistant Professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism, Maryland Institute College of Art, will discuss Turkey’s art world of the 1960s through the lens of Abby Weed Grey’s collecting activities, focusing on the intersection of art and international discourses about democracy in the wake of World War II.