Running until 4 June, the show features works encapsulating the changing contemporary landscape and its effects on us.
From washing a beached whale and a deserted ship to the effects of poor air quality on us, this exhibition is provocative in the best ways.
Titled the only constant, the NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) Art Gallery’s spring exhibition will run until 4 June. The brilliant show was inspired by the work of legendary artist Tarek Al-Ghoussein and features other artists as well including Patty Chang, Gil Heitor Cortesão, Sharon Lockhart, Taus Makhacheva, Haroon Mirza, Clifford Ross, Thomas Struth, and Vivek Vilasini.
Featuring 27 different works, the exhibition is curated by the Executive Director of The NYUAD Art Gallery and University Chief Curator, Maya Allison.
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This is part of Allison’s ongoing study of the landscape in contemporary art. For the only constant, she explains, “The artists here confront contemporary landscape as a site of profound tension: we change the landscape, and it changes us. Even as we might long for an untouched paradise, humans build futuristic utopias. My concept for this exhibition grew out of Tarek Al-Ghoussein’s Al Sawaber series, through which runs a theme: utopia and paradise arrive, and then depart (change is the only constant). This tension is fundamental to questions we face as humans on this planet.”
The artists in this exhibition engage with the landscape to transform looking into witnessing: observing whorls of pollution recorded on delicate rice paper (Vivek Vilasini); washing an entire ship’s hull by hand, to acknowledge the loss of the Aral Sea (Patty Chang); or to closely examine each detail of a dense landscape, at night (Sharon Lockhart).
With COP28 fast approaching, the entire country is working towards being as sustainable as possible. The entire exhibition captures the contrast between the need for untouched landscapes and utopian development, and how neither can exist as static concepts, and change is ‘the only constant’.
Catch the exhibition from Tuesday through Sunday, 12pm – 8pm.
For more information, visit nyuad-artscenter.org/en_US/events/dayplanner
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Image source NYUAD Art Gallery
