Sprawled over 7,000 square feet, the new gallery space at New York University Abu Dhabi was inaugurated yesterday with an exhibition of seminal works.
Titled On Site and curated by Maya Allison, the show addresses the link between natural landscapes and the built environment.
Among the pieces is Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim's Stones Wrapped with Copper Wire, an installation of large smooth rocks Ibrahim found in the mountains of Khor Fakkan.
Ibrahim took them to his studio and wrapped them in copper wire before setting them back in their original place and leaving them for several seasons to become weathered before collecting them again – a testament to his artistic dedication and to the simplicity of the medium, while making a quiet yet bold statement about the effects of humans upon nature.
Also in the show is Rashid Rana’s replica of a gallery room in the Tate Modern museum in London. Rana is one of the leading Pakistani artists of his generation (he had a solo booth in Art Dubai 2014). In this piece, he transposes imagery of one room in the London institution into another, fabricated room.
Palestinian-Kuwaiti Tarek Al Ghoussein’s photographic works from Saadiyat Island bring to the show the relevance of location. Al Ghoussein is a professor of visual art at NYUAD and his art deals with how his identity is formed. The deliberately bleak images feature the artist but his face remains unseen, opening a conversation about identity and belonging.
The gallery's next exhibition opens in March and will feature new works by the art collective Slavs & Tatars. A book of commissioned essays, titled Mirrors for Princes, published by the gallery, will also be launched alongside the show.
On Site runs until January 17 at NYUAD Art Gallery (East Administration Building), Saadiyat Campus. Open Monday to Thursday, 11am to 5pm; Saturday 2 to 5pm; closed on Friday and Sunday. For more information, visit www.nyuad-artgallery.org
