Week 04: ATSNYC 2020
alright week four! i got to two university galleries. while the visits were planned independent of one another, both exhibitions had to with expanding and decolonizing narratives.
Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University
the title of the current exhibition “waiting for omar gatlato: Contemporary Art from Algeria and its Diaspora” is a stacked reference from a 1979 publication on early Algerian film, edited by Wassyla Tamzali, which references Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot and Merzak Allouache’s 1976 cult classic film Omar Gatlato. showing a variety of media, painting, sculpture, instillation and video, the single gallery exhibits 25 artists responding to the different eras of Algerian history from 1803 as a french colony to fighting for independence in 1962, the civil war in the 1990s and contemporary uprisings to unseat Bouteflika.
the show was fairly well balanced in terms of installation of media, however the sound bleeds of two of the films were at time distracting. the walls were painted a warm off white rather than a stark white which enhanced the tone of many of the pieces chosen.
i fell absolutely in love with the photographic light boxes and framed sketchbook pieces of Sonia Merabet. The assembled wooden paintings by Karim Ghelloussi are also worth noting.
noteworthy visitor info:
closed: Mondays
open until 8pm on Thursdaysfree
restroom: yes
cute little lockers for a coat check
cafe: no
bookstore: no, but had an exhibition catalog for sale
recommended reading/listening:
Exploring Algerian culture, self-representation at new Wallach gallery exhibition (Oct202019) columbia spectator
Grey Art Gallery at NYU
the current exhibition up at Grey Art Gallery at NYU is Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World 1950-1980. abstract art primarily from the 1950-80s has tendency to heavily white washed due the popularity and perpetual framing around abstract expressionism. This exhibition explores mid-20th-century abstract art from North Africa, West Asia, and the Arab diaspora. The paintings and sculptures are by artists from countries including Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), borrowed from the Barjeel Art Foundation collection. Expanding abstractions' narrative to include multiple modernisms on non-objective art.
noteworthy visitor info:
closed: Sunday/Monday
open until 8pm on Wednesdaysfree
restroom: no
cafe: no
bookstore: no
recommended reading/listening:
Modernism in the Middle East and Arab World (Sept092016) routledge encyclopedia of moderism
museum goal completed: 13/240