the only constant

In this exhibition, artists confront our contemporary landscape, with a focus on the moment where humans change landscape, and landscape changes humans, moving from images related to paradise, and progressing to ideas of development and technological aspiration.

This exhibition is part of an ongoing series in which curator Maya Allison investigates the concept of landscape as it manifests in contemporary art practice, globally.

She writes:

“We humans have a complicated relationship to our landscape, particularly in an era of catastrophic climate events, and our ever-growing need for energy. My thinking for our spring exhibition, the only constant, began with Tarek Al-Ghoussein’s Al Sawaber photo series from 2017, in which he captures the tension between a decaying sci-fi housing complex architecture, and its residents’ posters and murals of nature and paradise. Each of the artists in this exhibition speak to different aspects of our fantasies and terrors around landscape: as refuge and paradise, as sustenance, as property, as energy source, as a threat, and as a register of our threat to our own habitat.”

Curated by Maya Allison

click here to view the exhibition 360 tour

(b. 1962, Kuwait; d. 2022, New York, US)

Tarek Al-Ghoussein received his BFA in photography from New York University (1985) and his MA, also in photography, from the University of New Mexico (1989). The child of Palestinian exiles, as a child Al-Ghoussein lived in Kuwait, the United States, Morocco, and Japan. Initially working as a documentary photographer and photojournalist, Al-Ghoussein moved into art, and was an influential figure in the rising generation of artists in the UAE over the last two decades, first at the American University of Sharjah, then at NYU Abu Dhabi, where he was a professor for almost a decade, and eventually the Director of the MFA program in its inaugural year. Al-Ghoussein has exhibit––ed extensively internationally, including the Guangzhou Image Triennial (2021); the Venice Biennale (2015, 2013); the Singapore Biennale (2008); the 6th and 7th Sharjah Biennales (2005, 2003); Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art (Korea); Kunstmuseum Bochum (Germany); and the Museum of Modern Art (US). Al-Ghoussein’s work is represented in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (US); the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum (both UK); the Sharjah Art Foundation (UAE); the Mori Art Museum (Japan); the Royal Photography Museum (Denmark); and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art (Qatar); among others.

(b. 1972, San Leandro, US; lives and works in Los Angeles)

Originally trained as a painter, Patty Chang graduated with a BA from the University of California at San Diego (1994) and shortly after moved to New York, where she became involved with the performance scene. Patty Chang’s work has been exhibited across the US and internationally at such institutions as the Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim Museum, New Museum, Hammer Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (all US); M+ Museum (Hong Kong); BAK, Basis voor actuele Kunst (Netherlands); Chinese Arts Center (UK); Times Museum (China); and Moderna Museet (Sweden). She has received a United States Artist Fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation Grant, a Creative Capital Fellowship, a Guna S. Mundheim Fellowship in the Visual Arts at the American Academy in Berlin, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Art and the Environment grant, and an Anonymous Was a Woman Environmental Art Grant.

(b. 1967, Lisbon, Portugal, where he lives and works)

Gil Heitor Cortes.o earned a BA at Faculdade de Belas-Artes da Universidade de Lisboa (FBAUL). He has shown his work widely and internationally, including solo exhibitions at CARBON 12 (UAE); Suzanne Tarasieve (France); Galeria Pedro Cera, and Sism.grafo (both Portugal). His work is represented in the permanent collections of MUDAM (Luxemburg); the ARCO Foundation, and Fundacion Pedro Barrie de la Maza (both Spain), among many others.

(b. 1964, Norwood, Massachusetts; lives and works in Los Angeles, US)

Sharon Lockhart received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute (1991) and her MFA from the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena (1993). Lockhart has been included in the biennials of Liverpool (2014); Shanghai (2014); Sydney (2006); and at the FRONT International Triennial (2018); as well as the Whitney Biennial (US, 2004). She represented Poland at the 57th Venice Biennale (2017). Solo exhibitions of Lockhart’s work have been presented at numerous institutions, including recently at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (Spain); Contemporary Art Centre (Lithuania); Fondazione Fotografia (Italy); Museu Berardo (Portugal); Kunstmuseum Luzern (Switzerland); Bonniers Konsthall (Sweden); CCA Warsaw – Ujazdowski Castle (Poland); the Arts Club of Chicago, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (both US). In 2019, she received the Grand Prix d’Honneur at the Marseille International Film Festival.

(b. 1983, Moscow; lives and works between Dubai, UAE, and Moscow, Russia)

Taus Makhacheva creates works that explore the restless connections between historical narratives and fictions of cultural authenticity. Often humorous, her art considers the resilience of images, objects and bodies emerging out of stories and personal experiences. Her methodology involves reworking of materials, landscapes and monuments, pushing against walls, opening up ceilings and proliferating institutional spaces with a cacophony of voices. She holds a BA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London (2007), and an MFA from the Royal College of Art (2013). Her work has been featured in dozens of biennials and triennials, from the Yokohama Triennial (2020), and Liverpool (2018), to Venice (2017), Shanghai (2016), and Sharjah (2013). Among many other museums, her work has been presented recently at the Louvre Abu Dhabi and the Jameel Art Center (both UAE); the Tate Modern (UK); Centre Pompidou (France); and Fries Museum (Netherlands). She has received multiple awards, including the Future of Europe, winner, (GfZK) Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig (2014).

(b. 1977, London, UK, where he lives and works)

Haroon Mirza has a BA in Painting from Winchester School of Art, an MA in Design Critical Practice and Theory from Goldsmiths College (2006), and an MA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art and Design (2007). Mirza has exhibited his work extensively, internationally. His recent solo shows have been held at the CCA Kitakyushu (Japan); John Hansard Gallery (UK); Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (Australia); and Sifand Art Museum (Nanjing). He participated in the 7th Shenzhen Sculpture Biennale (2012); and the 54th Venice Biennale (2011), where he was awarded a Silver Lion.

(b. 1952, New York City, US, where he lives and works)

Clifford Ross earned a B.A. in Art and Art History from Yale University (1974). Following an early career in painting and sculpture, Ross began his photographic work in 1994. Ross’s photographic techniques expanded over time, using digital methods, inkjet printing, and ultimately developing his unique method of printing on wood. His work has been widely exhibited in galleries and museums in the United States, as well as in Europe, Brazil, and China, and can be found in numerous public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; the J. Paul Getty Museum; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (all US).

(b. 1954, Geldern, Germany; lives and works in Berlin)

Known for his extensive bodies of photographic work, Thomas Struth began originally with painting before he enrolled at the Kunstakademie, Düsseldorf in 1973. He has participated in numerous international exhibitions globally, including at the Museum Folkwang, the Martin-Gropius-Bau, and Haus der Kunst (all Germany); the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the High Museum, the Moody Center for the Arts, and the St. Louis Museum of Art (all US); the Whitechapel Gallery (UK); the MAST Foundation Bologna (Italy); and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (Spain). His work has been featured in international biennales and art fairs including the Venice Architecture Biennale (2012); Venice Biennale (1990); and Documenta IX (1992). In 2018, Struth received the Honorary Magister Artium Gandensis from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) in Belgium. In 2016, he was elected Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and received the Centenary Medal and Honorary Membership from The Royal Photographic Society, London. In 2014, he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal Institute of British Architects. He is the winner of the Spectrum-International Prize for Photography of the Foundation of Lower Saxony (1997), and the Werner Mantz Prize for Photography (the Netherlands, 1992).

(b. 1964, Kerala, India; lives and works between Kochi and Bangalore)

Vivek Vilasini trained as a Marine Radio Officer at the All India Marine College in Kochi. He went on to obtain a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Kerala University (1987) before turning to art and studying sculpture from traditional Indian craftspeople. After a period in Bombay, he spent much of the 1990s in Dubai, where he joined a community of artists working on the vanguard of experimentation. Through his practice, he has developed an artistic intervention, in the form of a food forest in Munnar, Kerala, as part of a larger project of connecting art and ecology. His work has been included in exhibitions internationally, including at the Sharjah Art Museum and Maraya Art Center (both UAE); the Prague Biennale (2011); the Kochi Biennial (2012); the Herning Museum of Contemporary Art (Denmark); the Museum of Contemporary Art (Shanghai); Centre De Cultura Contempor.nia De Barcelona (Spain); Newark Museum; the Phyllis Weston-Annie Bolling Gallery; and the Krohn Conservatory (all US).

September 26–November 3, 2024

MUJO is a dance and live music performance using the sandy desert as the stage, with visuals projected on a large dune in which the dance takes place.

October 1–December 8, 2024

Between the Tides: A Gulf Quinquennial, the first of an ongoing series of exhibitions held every five years that surveys the most quintessential artistic voices from across the GCC.

The Art Gallery at New York University Abu Dhabi (The NYUAD Art Gallery)

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Artists

Tarek Al-Ghoussein

Patty Chang

Gil Heitor Cortesão

Sharon Lockhart

Taus Makhacheva

Haroon Mirza

Clifford Ross

Thomas Struth

Vivek Vilasini

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