December 16, 2024 • 37 mins
Prepare to be captivated by the insights of Maya Allison, the Executive Director and Chief Curator at NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery, as she reveals the fascinating journey that led her from the RISD Museum to the vibrant art scene of the UAE. Discover her unique perspective on the evolving role of curators, who not only educate but also engage as public intellectuals and creative practitioners. This engaging conversation uncovers the layers of curatorial work, from managing ancient artifacts to contemporary masterpieces, and highlights the joy of connecting art with audiences in meaningful ways.
Finally, explore the dynamic evolution of the UAE’s arts and culture scene, from its participation in the Venice Biennial to the influence of South Asian art. We navigate through pivotal moments that shaped this region's rich art history, underscoring the importance of cross-cultural exchanges. Listen as Maya outlines the future developments at NYU Abu Dhabi Art Galleries, spotlighting their commitment to supporting emerging and mid-career artists. Through substantial exhibitions and publications, these efforts not only elevate individual careers but also contribute to a broader global art discourse.
Ishara Art Foundation
Ishara Art Foundation was founded in 2019 as a non-profit organisation dedicated to presenting contemporary art of South Asia. Located in Dubai, the Foundation supports emerging and established practices that advance critical dialogue and explore global interconnections.
Ishara signifies a gesture, a signal or a hint, and is a word common to several languages including Arabic, Persian, Hindi, Bengali, Swahili and Urdu.
Ishara Art Foundation is presented in partnership with Alserkal.
For more information visit www.ishara.org.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hello everyone, this is Noor Hassan and you're
listening to the Ishara ArtFoundation and Radical
Contemporary Season.
This episode marks our seasonfinale and it was my honor to
interview Maya Allison, the ArtGallery's Executive Director and
Chief Curator at NYU, abu Dhabi.
Maya was also the Curator atthe UAE Pavilion Venice Biennale
(00:26):
2022 and she is an advisoryboard member of Ishara Art
Foundation.
We cover in great depth what itmeans to be a curator, and Maya
shares with us her curatorialpractices and expertise.
I think you'll be able toextract great value from this
conversation, so, withoutfurther ado, here is my episode
with Maya Allison.
Right now I'm speaking withMaya Allison and it's such an
(00:57):
honor to have you as part of ourIshara Art Foundation Radical
Contemporary Podcast series.
Maya, thank you for agreeing tobe on the series with us.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
It's my pleasure.
I'm very happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Thank you.
I want to first get into apoint we had just mentioned now,
prior to recording, which isyour career in the curatorial
world and the curatorialpractices.
A lot of people might assumethat, working at NYU Abu Dhabi,
that you're an educatorprimarily, but you are a curator
primarily.
So can you tell me whatinspired you to actually take
(01:30):
this path into curatorial work?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah.
So it's interesting because tome, education is not something
that stops when you leave theclassroom, right?
So we're all on journeys ofeducation in all of our lives,
and curatorial practice is aninteresting sort of hybrid in
(01:55):
any context.
You know, there are manydifferent kinds of curators.
You can be a curator whose jobis to interpret a collection and
do research about a collection,and the act of interpreting it
is, for example, writing a bookabout a particular object and
its history.
That does contribute toeducation, of course.
It's also a sort of a curatoralso plays this kind of public
(02:20):
intellectual role in the senseof speaking about ideas with a
general audience, as opposed toonly in a classroom or only to a
specialized audience.
And that, to me, is veryexciting and important, because
there are so many perspectiveson every subject and that art
(02:41):
can bring together all theseperspectives into dialogue that
doesn't there's no limit to whocan be in that conversation,
basically.
And then the third part that isinspiring to me is that
curatorial practice has its owncreative practice embedded in it
, which is not to say that Ithink curators should run around
(03:02):
taking liberties with artworkand misinterpreting it or
misrepresenting it, but it's thecurating in the sense of making
exhibitions, is one of makingconnections, drawing parallels,
drawing out certain ideas,textures, forms, concepts,
(03:23):
histories out certain ideas,textures, forms, concepts,
histories, and it gives me kindof a profound, a sense of
meaning and purpose.
That's very similar to what Iwould get, what you know, what I
think an artistic practice cangive, which is a sense of
contributing to something biggerthan yourself, but also
(03:48):
trusting your instincts andlistening to the ways that we
communicate that transcendlanguage and science, because
art kind of does this otherthing that we wouldn't make art
if we could just say it or writeit or prove it.
Art has another role to playand it's a fundamentally
(04:08):
creative one.
And so when and it's adifferent kind of thinking, and
so as a curator, I get topartake in that kind of thinking
, even though I'm not the onemaking the work.
And I find that type ofthinking both really frustrating
, because my job is to try tohelp viewers find a way in, but
I can't just explain what thework does.
(04:29):
You have to actually experienceit or you haven't understood
the work.
So that's a long answer.
But my interest in curatorialpractice is an interest in
creativity, in education and inexchange with the world around
me in all its forms.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
I actually truly enjoyed your answer.
I think it's an amazingperspective on curation and the
idea that we really wouldn'tmake art if we could say it.
I think that's a brilliantquote.
So I want to get into for ouraudience what led you to NYU,
abu Dhabi in particular.
In a sense, I think it's areally interesting story.
(05:10):
You are the art gallery'sexecutive director and chief
curator.
What a fascinating position.
Can you tell us what broughtyou to, in the end, the UAE?
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Like many of us, it's not like I woke up when I was
12 years old and said this is mycareer plan, but what happened
was that I kept, and I feelreally delighted that this is
the career that I found myselfin and manifesting in the way
that it has, because there wasno roadmap for what I'm doing
(05:42):
was no roadmap for what I'mdoing and in a way, it was a
combination of just sheer likegood, excellent opportunities
combined with a little bit offoolhardy.
You know, not knowing anybetter, that one couldn't do
what I was thinking.
What I ended up doing, becauseif I had thought about it too
(06:04):
much, if I knew what I know now,I might have thought it wasn't
possible.
Because what I ended up doing?
Because if I had thought aboutit too much, if I knew what I
know now, I might have thoughtit wasn't possible, because what
I did was I was a curator.
First.
I trained at the RISD Museum,which is essentially a miniature
metropolitan it's from mummiesto contemporary art and it's a
museum that was created for thestudy of art and design, for the
(06:25):
purposes of teaching artstudents and design students at
the Rhode Island School ofDesign.
It was created over 100 yearsago and and it has a really the
collection has a purpose, and soI became a curator in.
I was already curatingexperimental film and video art
(06:46):
and I was hired there as acuratorial assistant, which is a
three year position where yousort of cut your teeth on
curatorial practice, and thenthey kept me on for a fourth
year as interim curator ofcontemporary art while my
curator was on sabbatical, wason sabbatical.
So I really got to experiencethe full gamut of learning to be
a curator training othercurators, thinking about
(07:14):
building a collection,understanding the machinery of
how a museum actually works Likethis was a very proper museum
that followed all the bestpractices and then creating some
of my own exhibitions, but also, you know, working with the
curator who was training me, whowas a walking encyclopedia of
modern and contemporary art ofthe Western world.
(07:35):
She really knew what she wasdoing.
So I really feel really luckyto have trained with her.
That was Judith Tannenbaum.
But the other thing that Ilearned was how a museum can
interact with the university,right.
So every day classes would comein and the curators would teach
from the collection or from theexhibition to the classes, and
(07:59):
so the curators were recognizedas hybrid faculty, so they
weren't teaching outside of themuseum but they were teaching in
the museum and they were doingresearch and writing books.
So I really was trained in thecontext of the role that a
museum can play in a universityas part of the teaching and
learning curriculum.
(08:21):
And from there I went on to bethe curator at Brown University,
literally across the street andup the hill, and there it was a
much smaller team.
It was just.
It was not a full-scale museum,it was just a handful of people
making exhibitions, taking careof the collection, and I did.
You know some more greatexhibitions there.
(08:41):
You know some more greatexhibitions there.
So it was around this time thatNYU Abu Dhabi sort of came
knocking and invited me toconsult on the plan for their
university museum and gallery inAbu Dhabi and it began as kind
of an exploratory consultancyand it led to me sort of writing
(09:03):
a proposal for what it couldlook like and that wound up
being me doing it.
So it was a kind of interestingprogression from theory to
practice.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
That is such an inspiring story, honestly, and I
really believe that preparationis key and I really believe
(09:50):
that preparation is key and Ithink a lot of people do believe
that.
You know a chief curator moreexamples of projects at NYU Abu
Dhabi that you feel reallyhelped cultivate this amazingly
curious community that is thereat the moment spearheading,
actually, a lot of theeducational and curatorial work
in the region.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So thank you.
There's one aspect of the storythat I just told you that then
becomes the connecting link tohow I ended up staying here for
13 years now, and this, I think,will answer your question,
which is that one of the mostimportant shows I worked on
while I was at the RISD Museumwas called Wonderground
Providence, 1995 to 2005.
(10:29):
And it was a survey of anunderground art scene in
Providence, rhode Island, wherethe RISD Museum is, that was
kind of invisible to the peoplewho live in Providence but had a
cult following in Japan andGermany and then around the
country, because it was a scenethat had it brought together
noise, music, really innovativescreen printing practices,
(10:49):
really innovative screenprinting practices performance,
art, costume, wrestling, matches, you know, I mean these were
just like you know, if youimagine Pippi Longstocking, like
these crazy kids in a way.
Many of them were dropouts andthey took over the warehouses on
(11:10):
the other side of town andthese were not legal sanctioned
venues but they were placeswhere these artists were making
a commitment to a creative lifethat was really different from
the model that the art world wasoffering at the time.
So instead of, you know, tryingto get a big gallery and trying
(11:31):
to sell your work for lots ofmoney.
They decided screen printingallowed them to make money
quickly.
Not very much, but then also itmade art affordable.
So screen printing then becameone of their main practices to
earn money, but also toadvertise their shows, and they
would put these coded messagesinto their screen prints,
(11:51):
advertising events that werehappening secretly, you know, in
their warehouses, their parties.
It's just another way of like,you know, inviting your friends
to your house, but it was turnedinto an art form, basically,
and so they were.
What that made me start to thinkabout is what happens when a
(12:12):
community is its own validation.
Does that make sense If youthink about a community instead
of relying on New York or Londonto say your art is good?
Their community validateditself, they created its own
space, they set up their ownprinting press, they did their
own sort of stealth marketingand they had their own events,
(12:36):
and then they became part of acircuit of venues like this
around the country, and that gotme thinking.
You know that's a very punkrock approach and it's not
really appropriate.
For every context work verydifferently, but at the core of
it is something that is sharedwith every artistic community
(12:57):
that I've looked at, which isthat there's a group of people
who essentially believe in whatthey're doing and seek out other
people who have that trust intheir own practice and then they
sort of support each otherthrough the rough times and
celebrate each other in thegreat times and also challenge
each other in the great timesand also challenge each other.
(13:19):
And so that you know, if I'm anartist sitting by myself in my
studio, probably I'm going tolet myself off the hook a little
bit or I'm going to be too hardon myself.
So if I have five other artistsin my realm that I can talk to
about what I'm doing, then thatbecomes kind of a checks and
balances but also anencouragement to go further,
because you have a communitykind of around you.
(13:39):
And when I was, when I came tothe UAE, I saw, I discovered
that that community exists hereas well and has existed
particularly since the 1970s or80s, depending on how you count
it.
And that's when I began torealize that the you know, what
I saw in Providence wasn't aone-off and that this is a
(14:02):
phenomenon that occurs aroundthe world, across cultures.
You know, we see it inparticularly in moments where
modernization is creating a lotof pressure on the arts to
define itself in new ways, orthe arts is leading the
questioning of the status quo.
And it's in those moments ofhigh risk and leaps of faith
(14:23):
where community actually becomesthe most important.
Because the you know what dothey say if you can go farther
together, you can go alone andgo fast, or you can go together
and go far, and I think thisapplies in the arts as well.
So when you're in a university,this also happens right among
students, among faculty, butalso the university gallery can
(14:46):
play a role in creating thatspace of sort of encouragement
for risk taking, support and thesafety net, but also be a place
where the community externallycan gather to experience and
participate in questioning andadvancing conversations.
So one of the series that welaunched last year that I'm
(15:07):
really proud of, from mycolleague Doigou Demir, is
called Curators Talk, and so webring in curators to speak about
their practice, and this hasbecome a forum for emerging
curators and artists to cometogether to think about what
exhibitions do.
And so this is, I think thatkind of dialogue and feeling not
(15:29):
isolated, is really critical tothe health and sort of
oxygenize, oxygenating of ofartistic practice.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
It's such a fascinating way that you just
described community and how you.
You see that there are likeunifying factors across the
world, which is which isactually it.
Really it brings me to my nextpoint, which I mean I want to
get more into the galleries atNYU and sort of how they
contribute to the broader artlandscape in the UAE.
(16:00):
At the end of the day, it is auniversity and that in and of
itself is a unique perspective,obviously, but given that you
know every year something new ishappening biennales, museums
(16:24):
opening, etc.
Can you just give me a kind ofinsight into that?
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Yeah.
So it's a.
Let's see if I can rephrase,reframe this a little bit,
because, yes, there's alwayssomething new developing,
especially, I think, right nowin our region.
There's this sense ofproliferation of arts and
culture projects, and one of theluxuries that I have is that
(16:53):
I've been here for quite a while, so I've watched this
development and I've had a lotof time to think about what it
means, where it's going and whatthis might look like in the
future.
So when I arrived, I startedvisiting in 2010 and moved here
(17:18):
in the beginning of 2012.
And so in that period, in 2009,uae had had its first
participation in the VeniceBiennial, and it was 2008 and 7,
7 and 8, which was when theSaudi projects projects were
announced.
The national, this Englishlanguage newspaper was launched,
(17:39):
christie's and Sotheby's startparticipating in the marketplace
.
Here we see the FarjamFoundation opening.
So there's this moment, thiswatershed moment, right before I
arrive, where suddenly all betsare off and everybody's money
is on cultural development,never mind that the Sharjah arts
sector, arts and culture sectorhas been active and rich and
(18:03):
diverse and generative since1980.
Right.
So, 30 years later, in comesthis other movement and in a way
, for a minute, it kind ofeclipses everything else and
becomes the main topic ofconversation, and there's this
idea that there's nothing here,that we're importing art and
culture, and nobody seems to.
(18:24):
You know, they kind ofconveniently don't mention
Sharjah, but in fact Sharjah wasthe founding sort of emirate in
this regard.
And then Abu Dhabi had thecultural foundation, which was
also really important and alsooften forgotten, and it trained
(18:44):
generations of artists, justlike Sharjah's Emirates Fine
Arts Society did.
And so I think it's really oneof the things that the narrative
often drops is, although thehistory was quiet and maybe not
on the front page of the artnewspaper, the history is there,
and so what we're seeing now isthe fruit of those early
(19:08):
foundational institutions fromthe 80s and 90s throughout the
UAE, and then, if you think ofthat as the roots and the trunk
of the tree, is the first 10years of 2000.
And now we're seeing theproliferation of branches which
are bearing fruit, and I thinkthat the museums are kind of the
(19:34):
sort of you know, then thesebecome the final stage and now
we have all the layers necessaryto create a healthy ecosystem.
So now the university has anMFA, which is a really important
part of the ecosystem.
The Salama Foundation has beenpreparing students for MFAs
through their one-yearfellowship program.
There's really so muchnourishment now happening.
(19:56):
What is the gallery's role?
So in 2012, the gallery's role,as I started to set it up to
open in 2014, was to figure outwho's the audience for all of
this right.
So a lot of our exhibitions itcould be thought of as audience
testing, as a way of saying, allright, who wants to talk about
this?
What about this?
Who wants to talk about that?
(20:17):
And I was going through, youknow, I did a show that was a
group show, thinking aboutSadiat as a place that we
imagine as a future for culture.
That was the first show wasSlavs and Tatars.
They're sort of a hip duo whocombine thinking from Central
Asia and Eastern Europe to makethese kind of very playful,
(20:42):
witty but incredibly erudite artinstallations.
And then I go to Diana al-Hadid, who's this incredibly
beautiful sculpture-makingartist who's Syrian-born
American, and it goes on likethis.
But really, where I saw thepenny drop, as they say, was
when I did the show called, butwe Cannot See them.
(21:03):
And I did that with BannaKattan and Alaa Idris to survey
the UAE's own avant-gardehistory.
So we did an oral history, andthat was when I realized there's
this.
I had seen that people didn'tknow the story of the UAE's art
history, and one of the versionsof the story was there were
(21:25):
these five artists we call themthe five.
They did this, they did thatand they're all great.
But when I actually did the oralhistory, what I discovered was
it wasn't just five, of course,there were five, because that
was the name of the exhibitionthat named the group.
But in fact that group had in itmultiple people from multiple
cultures, so a Sudanese guy, aDutch guy, a couple Indian guys
(21:51):
you know what I mean and somewomen the women often also get
forgotten but also not onlyartists, also poets, musicians,
actors, playwrights, etc.
And so it was in that momentthat I was like oh so every time
we write, every time we do anexhibition according to a
grouping, there are people thatwe're leaving out.
And so then the then I began tothink much in a much kind of
(22:15):
broader, interconnecting way oflike let's try to look at
influences coming in from Eastand from South and from North,
not only from West, because thefive are almost always
interpreted through a Westernart history lens, in terms of
Duchamp and Fluxus and so on.
So I think that was a reallycritical moment of and that was
(22:40):
what sparked my interest in.
I already was like looking eastand looking at the progressives
in India as another momentwhere artists are sort of
forming their own community inorder to enable innovation.
But now I always think like, ohright, there are artists coming
from India who were part ofAvant-Garde in the UAE and this
means that there's no way youcan study the region's art
(23:03):
history without also studyingthe exchange across continents
that this location makespossible.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
So that's a little bit again a long answer, but I
think it really, really framesexactly kind of what we are
discussing even throughout thisentire season.
Maya, honestly and I think thatit's a perfect transition to
what I really want to ask you,which is the role and importance
of South Asian art, can youexpand on it in the UAE
(23:31):
ecosystem?
I mean this eventually, thisinterest in this entire story
led you to becoming an advisoryboard member of Ishada Art
Foundation, which is anincredibly important position,
but also a founding institutionin this entire story.
So can you please expand onthis regarding South Asian art
and its role within theecosystem?
(23:52):
On?
Speaker 2 (23:53):
this regarding South Asian art and its role within
the ecosystem.
Yeah, and I'll start by sayingsomething that sounds a little
contradictory.
So one of the missions for theuniversity galleries is not to
curate by region, by ethnicityor by country, and I say that
knowing full well that, if youlook at our history, it looks
like we have done that onseveral different occasions.
(24:15):
What it is is to think abouthistories and perspectives that
have been underrepresented butare rich with content and value,
and one of those 2017, was theUAE's own art history, and one
of those 2017, was the UAE's ownart history.
(24:37):
Currently, we have a show onthat looks at the wider Gulf's
contemporary practice today, andso, in a way, it's thinking
regionally, but it's actuallythinking about people who are
here, who are from somewhereelse, so that exchange is always
implicit in how I frame aregionally defined show, and so,
when it comes to South Asianart, I have the same kind of
challenge.
(24:57):
Well, what do we mean by SouthAsian?
Do we mean diaspora and peopleliving in the countries that we
refer to as South Asian?
Is there something South Asianinherent in the art?
I think all of these arequestions that I'm asking to
make a point, which is that it'sa problem, right, that that
(25:19):
phrasing itself asks a questionbefore you even realize it.
And if you don't see thequestion in the phrasing, then
the exhibitions can help youarticulate those questions.
The exhibitions can help youarticulate those questions At a
certain point.
In a way, what Ishara's missiondoes, and what Smita and Sabi
(25:40):
have managed to do, is to almostto allow us to see the work on
its own terms, which is to sayto acknowledge the cultural
references in which it grew upas the art form, but also not to
over-define it according to itscultural background.
(26:04):
And this is the problem youoften run into in kind of
traditional Western museums isthat when an artist from, let's
say, let's say, an artist fromIndia is presented, it's
interpreted, it can often beinterpreted almost exclusively
through the lens of Indianculture, instead of just letting
the art be what the art is.
(26:24):
And so then it adds this kindof separating layer of cultural
framing.
Sometimes that's reallynecessary, other times not so
much.
And I think what the Ashara ArtFoundation allows is for the
work to speak on its own terms,because it's already given the
frame nominally right, theminimal frame which is we focus
(26:47):
on the art from South Asia andthey don't over-define it.
They might have somebody who'sSouth Asian diaspora frame,
which is we focus on the artfrom South Asia, and they don't
over define it.
They might have somebody who'sSouth Asian diaspora, they, you
know, they kind of let it, letthat sort of shift and move as
necessary and they don't limitit to only India, for example,
which I think that was.
(27:07):
You know, that could be aquestion like where do you draw
that line, which I think thatcould be a question like where
do you draw that line?
And to let it be in a way itsown provocation as a term.
And then that way, then the artreally, it sort of shakes off
(27:28):
the weight of having torepresent an entire culture, the
weight of having to representan entire culture.
So having a space where thatweight is removed, I think
allows the art to sing and tohave its own value and its own
voice and not have to stand forthe voices of all South Asians.
And this, to me, is justextremely, extremely important,
(27:53):
extremely, extremely important,at the same time as I know that
the, the Ashara people are verycareful also not to, you know,
not to think of it in what wewould sometimes call ghettoizing
terms, where we're like youknow, this is not Asian enough,
you know what I mean Likethere's not this sort of like
evaluation beyond, just likewe're interested in the art from
these communities and thiscomes back to my point about
community.
(28:15):
What we're actually talkingabout are communities, not some
kind of generic cultural set oftraits, and so once I begin to
look at their exhibitions asrepresentations of artists and
their voices within their largercommunity, then it becomes a
much healthier exchange, and sowhen I think of our space in
(28:36):
dialogue with theirs, it's amuch easier exchange, also
because we are together.
Ishara and NYU Abu Dhabi are ina shared community, we're in a
shared thinking space and we'rethought partners.
We're in a shared thinkingspace and we're thought partners
, and so there's not a wallthat's created by by the, the
term South Asian, it's actually.
(28:57):
It actually opens doors ofexchange rather than narrowing
it and I think this is a reallyhard to articulate term but
something or concept, butsomething that's going to make
or break our ability to thinkabout art in a global context
and I think you've articulatedit perfectly and essentially the
(29:19):
idea that we don't drawboundaries or place artists in
boxes and right.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
That's essentially um truly the ethos ofara Art
Foundation, as Smita evenhonestly articulated during her
episode as well.
My final question for you, maya, is what's next for NYU, abu
Dhabi, the art galleries, andwhat's upcoming in your work?
Speaker 2 (29:49):
So, as the increase as Saadiyat Islands museums come
online, we have the ZayedNational Museum, which is a
heritage and history museum,followed by the Guggenheim Abu
Dhabi, as well as Team Lab andthe Natural History Museum.
As these come online, and asthe Cultural Foundation has come
(30:13):
back online, and as 421 and theMISA projects kick into gear,
we have a really wonderful newchapter opening for us.
So we're at our 10-yearanniversary.
We opened 10 years ago inNovember of 2014.
And I'm really happy becausewhat this means is that we can
now really dig into the areaswhere I have found kind of the
(30:38):
deepest audience engagement, butalso the things getting a feel
for what can we do that nobodyelse can, and I'll give you some
examples.
Yeah, so one of the things thatwe can do that is very sort of
a characteristic universitygallery or museum role in an
ecosystem to play, which is togive emerging or mid-career
(31:02):
artists like a major,substantial survey and
monographic book publication.
Right.
So not just a catalog, but atrue book that does a deep dive
into their practice, and thatoften is something that can
really take an artist's careerto the next level.
A lot of times, universityshows generate the kind of
(31:26):
knowledge production.
You need to then be at thelevel at which major museums
begin to.
They begin to be the sort ofthing that you would start to
see in major museums, and sothat's one of the roles that a
university museum plays inecosystems very often is, and a
lot of times when you see amajor museum doing a
(31:47):
retrospective, it'll follow onthe heels of projects like that
being done by university museumsand galleries.
So part of our job is to takerisks in addition to this kind
of identifying really key talentand questions and giving it its
(32:07):
first major platform talent andquestions and giving it its
first major platform.
Another thing that we do is lookat artistic practice on its
most experimental outer edges,like what is happening in a
particular art movement, in aparticular art community, in a
particular style, in aparticular region, and sort of
(32:32):
taking a look or a snapshot.
So that's the current show wehave on, which is like what are
some of the most important orinfluential or thought-provoking
things that we've seen in theGCC in the last five years?
But then, you know, anotherexample would be be the moon,
which is not.
You know, this is a Swissartist who does these um, low
(32:54):
tech, sound installations, andwe did a major survey of his
work with a new commission and abook, uh, back in twenties I
don't even remember which yearit was 16, 17, 18, 2018, I think
and um, and that would be anexample of somebody who's doing
work that is not verycommercially viable, right, like
he can't sell his art thateasily or he could, but it's not
(33:17):
the kind of thing you just hangon your wall in your dining
room but it's work that reallydeserves deeper study.
And so our space is a spacethat allows artists to grow and
flourish ideas that may not havea commercial value, but have an
institutional and educationaland thought-provoking kind of
(33:38):
value.
And then, finally, curatorialpractice and training of
students is something veryspecific to what we do.
So one of the things I make itmy business to be thinking
always about what does a curatordo?
Why do we exist?
How do we exist, but whatmodels are there that haven't
(33:59):
been fully explored?
What are the problems of museumhierarchies in terms of
audience versus curator?
The curator is usually thevoice of authority.
How can we experiment withdispersing that authority and
allowing exhibitions to be aspace of dialogue instead of a
space of hierarchy?
And so really thinking about theexhibition space as a space of
(34:23):
investigation andexperimentation, in whatever
form that takes.
Major museums have a differentremit from us.
Commercial galleries have tosell art.
Our job is to investigate andpush forward the thinking in our
field and that is consistentwith the university's role and
(34:44):
to help shape the futuregenerations of thinkers and
practitioners Not to shape them,but to make a space for them to
grow while they're here, ifthat makes sense.
So my hope is that the studentswe're training today and the
curatorial assistants that we'retraining today will go on to
lead museums, art movements,curatorial practices, major
(35:07):
exhibitions in the future, hereand abroad.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Amazing.
Thank you so much, Maya.
I think you've given us a lotto think about and perspectives,
not only regarding curatorialpractices, but also the
interaction between, like yousaid, museums and universities.
I really believe this episodewill add so much value to the
audience.
(35:32):
I thank you so much for yourtime and hopefully we meet soon
in Abu Dhabi perhaps, or Dubai,I would love it.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
I would love it.
Thank you so much also for youknow I think that I didn't say
this clearly, but it's always onmy mind which is one of the
most challenging things, I think, for a growing ecosystem is the
role that you play, which issomebody to help us tell the
story of what we're doing, butalso to question it, you know,
(36:04):
and to go a little deeper and toprod and you know, see what's
there and beyond the marketing.
And I think that you know, evenjust interviewing people and
bringing the stories together isreally important because
otherwise it disappears.
So thank you so much for thework that you're doing.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Thank you for listening and make sure to
follow at Ishara Art Foundation,as well as at NYUAD Art Gallery
and, of course, at the CurationPod, to ensure that you do not
miss another episode.
This season was incredible.
There are four episodes totalto the Ishara Art Foundation and
Radical Contemporary season.
(36:49):
Make sure to go back and listento any of the ones that you've
missed and I will see you all onthe next one.
Hello everyone, this is Noor Hassan and you're
listening to the Ishara ArtFoundation and Radical
Contemporary Season.
This episode marks our seasonfinale and it was my honor to
interview Maya Allison, the ArtGallery's Executive Director and
Chief Curator at NYU, abu Dhabi.
Maya was also the Curator atthe UAE Pavilion Venice Biennale
(00:26):
2022 and she is an advisoryboard member of Ishara Art
Foundation.
We cover in great depth what itmeans to be a curator, and Maya
shares with us her curatorialpractices and expertise.
I think you'll be able toextract great value from this
conversation, so, withoutfurther ado, here is my episode
with Maya Allison.
Right now I'm speaking withMaya Allison and it's such an
(00:57):
honor to have you as part of ourIshara Art Foundation Radical
Contemporary Podcast series.
Maya, thank you for agreeing tobe on the series with us.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
It's my pleasure.
I'm very happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Thank you.
I want to first get into apoint we had just mentioned now,
prior to recording, which isyour career in the curatorial
world and the curatorialpractices.
A lot of people might assumethat, working at NYU Abu Dhabi,
that you're an educatorprimarily, but you are a curator
primarily.
So can you tell me whatinspired you to actually take
(01:30):
this path into curatorial work?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah.
So it's interesting because tome, education is not something
that stops when you leave theclassroom, right?
So we're all on journeys ofeducation in all of our lives,
and curatorial practice is aninteresting sort of hybrid in
(01:55):
any context.
You know, there are manydifferent kinds of curators.
You can be a curator whose jobis to interpret a collection and
do research about a collection,and the act of interpreting it
is, for example, writing a bookabout a particular object and
its history.
That does contribute toeducation, of course.
It's also a sort of a curatoralso plays this kind of public
(02:20):
intellectual role in the senseof speaking about ideas with a
general audience, as opposed toonly in a classroom or only to a
specialized audience.
And that, to me, is veryexciting and important, because
there are so many perspectiveson every subject and that art
(02:41):
can bring together all theseperspectives into dialogue that
doesn't there's no limit to whocan be in that conversation,
basically.
And then the third part that isinspiring to me is that
curatorial practice has its owncreative practice embedded in it
, which is not to say that Ithink curators should run around
(03:02):
taking liberties with artworkand misinterpreting it or
misrepresenting it, but it's thecurating in the sense of making
exhibitions, is one of makingconnections, drawing parallels,
drawing out certain ideas,textures, forms, concepts,
(03:23):
histories out certain ideas,textures, forms, concepts,
histories, and it gives me kindof a profound, a sense of
meaning and purpose.
That's very similar to what Iwould get, what you know, what I
think an artistic practice cangive, which is a sense of
contributing to something biggerthan yourself, but also
(03:48):
trusting your instincts andlistening to the ways that we
communicate that transcendlanguage and science, because
art kind of does this otherthing that we wouldn't make art
if we could just say it or writeit or prove it.
Art has another role to playand it's a fundamentally
(04:08):
creative one.
And so when and it's adifferent kind of thinking, and
so as a curator, I get topartake in that kind of thinking
, even though I'm not the onemaking the work.
And I find that type ofthinking both really frustrating
, because my job is to try tohelp viewers find a way in, but
I can't just explain what thework does.
(04:29):
You have to actually experienceit or you haven't understood
the work.
So that's a long answer.
But my interest in curatorialpractice is an interest in
creativity, in education and inexchange with the world around
me in all its forms.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
I actually truly enjoyed your answer.
I think it's an amazingperspective on curation and the
idea that we really wouldn'tmake art if we could say it.
I think that's a brilliantquote.
So I want to get into for ouraudience what led you to NYU,
abu Dhabi in particular.
In a sense, I think it's areally interesting story.
(05:10):
You are the art gallery'sexecutive director and chief
curator.
What a fascinating position.
Can you tell us what broughtyou to, in the end, the UAE?
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Like many of us, it's not like I woke up when I was
12 years old and said this is mycareer plan, but what happened
was that I kept, and I feelreally delighted that this is
the career that I found myselfin and manifesting in the way
that it has, because there wasno roadmap for what I'm doing
(05:42):
was no roadmap for what I'mdoing and in a way, it was a
combination of just sheer likegood, excellent opportunities
combined with a little bit offoolhardy.
You know, not knowing anybetter, that one couldn't do
what I was thinking.
What I ended up doing, becauseif I had thought about it too
(06:04):
much, if I knew what I know now,I might have thought it wasn't
possible.
Because what I ended up doing?
Because if I had thought aboutit too much, if I knew what I
know now, I might have thoughtit wasn't possible, because what
I did was I was a curator.
First.
I trained at the RISD Museum,which is essentially a miniature
metropolitan it's from mummiesto contemporary art and it's a
museum that was created for thestudy of art and design, for the
(06:25):
purposes of teaching artstudents and design students at
the Rhode Island School ofDesign.
It was created over 100 yearsago and and it has a really the
collection has a purpose, and soI became a curator in.
I was already curatingexperimental film and video art
(06:46):
and I was hired there as acuratorial assistant, which is a
three year position where yousort of cut your teeth on
curatorial practice, and thenthey kept me on for a fourth
year as interim curator ofcontemporary art while my
curator was on sabbatical, wason sabbatical.
So I really got to experiencethe full gamut of learning to be
a curator training othercurators, thinking about
(07:14):
building a collection,understanding the machinery of
how a museum actually works Likethis was a very proper museum
that followed all the bestpractices and then creating some
of my own exhibitions, but also, you know, working with the
curator who was training me, whowas a walking encyclopedia of
modern and contemporary art ofthe Western world.
(07:35):
She really knew what she wasdoing.
So I really feel really luckyto have trained with her.
That was Judith Tannenbaum.
But the other thing that Ilearned was how a museum can
interact with the university,right.
So every day classes would comein and the curators would teach
from the collection or from theexhibition to the classes, and
(07:59):
so the curators were recognizedas hybrid faculty, so they
weren't teaching outside of themuseum but they were teaching in
the museum and they were doingresearch and writing books.
So I really was trained in thecontext of the role that a
museum can play in a universityas part of the teaching and
learning curriculum.
(08:21):
And from there I went on to bethe curator at Brown University,
literally across the street andup the hill, and there it was a
much smaller team.
It was just.
It was not a full-scale museum,it was just a handful of people
making exhibitions, taking careof the collection, and I did.
You know some more greatexhibitions there.
(08:41):
You know some more greatexhibitions there.
So it was around this time thatNYU Abu Dhabi sort of came
knocking and invited me toconsult on the plan for their
university museum and gallery inAbu Dhabi and it began as kind
of an exploratory consultancyand it led to me sort of writing
(09:03):
a proposal for what it couldlook like and that wound up
being me doing it.
So it was a kind of interestingprogression from theory to
practice.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
That is such an inspiring story, honestly, and I
really believe that preparationis key and I really believe
(09:50):
that preparation is key and Ithink a lot of people do believe
that.
You know a chief curator moreexamples of projects at NYU Abu
Dhabi that you feel reallyhelped cultivate this amazingly
curious community that is thereat the moment spearheading,
actually, a lot of theeducational and curatorial work
in the region.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So thank you.
There's one aspect of the storythat I just told you that then
becomes the connecting link tohow I ended up staying here for
13 years now, and this, I think,will answer your question,
which is that one of the mostimportant shows I worked on
while I was at the RISD Museumwas called Wonderground
Providence, 1995 to 2005.
(10:29):
And it was a survey of anunderground art scene in
Providence, rhode Island, wherethe RISD Museum is, that was
kind of invisible to the peoplewho live in Providence but had a
cult following in Japan andGermany and then around the
country, because it was a scenethat had it brought together
noise, music, really innovativescreen printing practices,
(10:49):
really innovative screenprinting practices performance,
art, costume, wrestling, matches, you know, I mean these were
just like you know, if youimagine Pippi Longstocking, like
these crazy kids in a way.
Many of them were dropouts andthey took over the warehouses on
(11:10):
the other side of town andthese were not legal sanctioned
venues but they were placeswhere these artists were making
a commitment to a creative lifethat was really different from
the model that the art world wasoffering at the time.
So instead of, you know, tryingto get a big gallery and trying
(11:31):
to sell your work for lots ofmoney.
They decided screen printingallowed them to make money
quickly.
Not very much, but then also itmade art affordable.
So screen printing then becameone of their main practices to
earn money, but also toadvertise their shows, and they
would put these coded messagesinto their screen prints,
(11:51):
advertising events that werehappening secretly, you know, in
their warehouses, their parties.
It's just another way of like,you know, inviting your friends
to your house, but it was turnedinto an art form, basically,
and so they were.
What that made me start to thinkabout is what happens when a
(12:12):
community is its own validation.
Does that make sense If youthink about a community instead
of relying on New York or Londonto say your art is good?
Their community validateditself, they created its own
space, they set up their ownprinting press, they did their
own sort of stealth marketingand they had their own events,
(12:36):
and then they became part of acircuit of venues like this
around the country, and that gotme thinking.
You know that's a very punkrock approach and it's not
really appropriate.
For every context work verydifferently, but at the core of
it is something that is sharedwith every artistic community
(12:57):
that I've looked at, which isthat there's a group of people
who essentially believe in whatthey're doing and seek out other
people who have that trust intheir own practice and then they
sort of support each otherthrough the rough times and
celebrate each other in thegreat times and also challenge
each other in the great timesand also challenge each other.
(13:19):
And so that you know, if I'm anartist sitting by myself in my
studio, probably I'm going tolet myself off the hook a little
bit or I'm going to be too hardon myself.
So if I have five other artistsin my realm that I can talk to
about what I'm doing, then thatbecomes kind of a checks and
balances but also anencouragement to go further,
because you have a communitykind of around you.
(13:39):
And when I was, when I came tothe UAE, I saw, I discovered
that that community exists hereas well and has existed
particularly since the 1970s or80s, depending on how you count
it.
And that's when I began torealize that the you know, what
I saw in Providence wasn't aone-off and that this is a
(14:02):
phenomenon that occurs aroundthe world, across cultures.
You know, we see it inparticularly in moments where
modernization is creating a lotof pressure on the arts to
define itself in new ways, orthe arts is leading the
questioning of the status quo.
And it's in those moments ofhigh risk and leaps of faith
(14:23):
where community actually becomesthe most important.
Because the you know what dothey say if you can go farther
together, you can go alone andgo fast, or you can go together
and go far, and I think thisapplies in the arts as well.
So when you're in a university,this also happens right among
students, among faculty, butalso the university gallery can
(14:46):
play a role in creating thatspace of sort of encouragement
for risk taking, support and thesafety net, but also be a place
where the community externallycan gather to experience and
participate in questioning andadvancing conversations.
So one of the series that welaunched last year that I'm
(15:07):
really proud of, from mycolleague Doigou Demir, is
called Curators Talk, and so webring in curators to speak about
their practice, and this hasbecome a forum for emerging
curators and artists to cometogether to think about what
exhibitions do.
And so this is, I think thatkind of dialogue and feeling not
(15:29):
isolated, is really critical tothe health and sort of
oxygenize, oxygenating of ofartistic practice.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
It's such a fascinating way that you just
described community and how you.
You see that there are likeunifying factors across the
world, which is which isactually it.
Really it brings me to my nextpoint, which I mean I want to
get more into the galleries atNYU and sort of how they
contribute to the broader artlandscape in the UAE.
(16:00):
At the end of the day, it is auniversity and that in and of
itself is a unique perspective,obviously, but given that you
know every year something new ishappening biennales, museums
(16:24):
opening, etc.
Can you just give me a kind ofinsight into that?
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Yeah.
So it's a.
Let's see if I can rephrase,reframe this a little bit,
because, yes, there's alwayssomething new developing,
especially, I think, right nowin our region.
There's this sense ofproliferation of arts and
culture projects, and one of theluxuries that I have is that
(16:53):
I've been here for quite a while, so I've watched this
development and I've had a lotof time to think about what it
means, where it's going and whatthis might look like in the
future.
So when I arrived, I startedvisiting in 2010 and moved here
(17:18):
in the beginning of 2012.
And so in that period, in 2009,uae had had its first
participation in the VeniceBiennial, and it was 2008 and 7,
7 and 8, which was when theSaudi projects projects were
announced.
The national, this Englishlanguage newspaper was launched,
(17:39):
christie's and Sotheby's startparticipating in the marketplace
.
Here we see the FarjamFoundation opening.
So there's this moment, thiswatershed moment, right before I
arrive, where suddenly all betsare off and everybody's money
is on cultural development,never mind that the Sharjah arts
sector, arts and culture sectorhas been active and rich and
(18:03):
diverse and generative since1980.
Right.
So, 30 years later, in comesthis other movement and in a way
, for a minute, it kind ofeclipses everything else and
becomes the main topic ofconversation, and there's this
idea that there's nothing here,that we're importing art and
culture, and nobody seems to.
(18:24):
You know, they kind ofconveniently don't mention
Sharjah, but in fact Sharjah wasthe founding sort of emirate in
this regard.
And then Abu Dhabi had thecultural foundation, which was
also really important and alsooften forgotten, and it trained
(18:44):
generations of artists, justlike Sharjah's Emirates Fine
Arts Society did.
And so I think it's really oneof the things that the narrative
often drops is, although thehistory was quiet and maybe not
on the front page of the artnewspaper, the history is there,
and so what we're seeing now isthe fruit of those early
(19:08):
foundational institutions fromthe 80s and 90s throughout the
UAE, and then, if you think ofthat as the roots and the trunk
of the tree, is the first 10years of 2000.
And now we're seeing theproliferation of branches which
are bearing fruit, and I thinkthat the museums are kind of the
(19:34):
sort of you know, then thesebecome the final stage and now
we have all the layers necessaryto create a healthy ecosystem.
So now the university has anMFA, which is a really important
part of the ecosystem.
The Salama Foundation has beenpreparing students for MFAs
through their one-yearfellowship program.
There's really so muchnourishment now happening.
(19:56):
What is the gallery's role?
So in 2012, the gallery's role,as I started to set it up to
open in 2014, was to figure outwho's the audience for all of
this right.
So a lot of our exhibitions itcould be thought of as audience
testing, as a way of saying, allright, who wants to talk about
this?
What about this?
Who wants to talk about that?
(20:17):
And I was going through, youknow, I did a show that was a
group show, thinking aboutSadiat as a place that we
imagine as a future for culture.
That was the first show wasSlavs and Tatars.
They're sort of a hip duo whocombine thinking from Central
Asia and Eastern Europe to makethese kind of very playful,
(20:42):
witty but incredibly erudite artinstallations.
And then I go to Diana al-Hadid, who's this incredibly
beautiful sculpture-makingartist who's Syrian-born
American, and it goes on likethis.
But really, where I saw thepenny drop, as they say, was
when I did the show called, butwe Cannot See them.
(21:03):
And I did that with BannaKattan and Alaa Idris to survey
the UAE's own avant-gardehistory.
So we did an oral history, andthat was when I realized there's
this.
I had seen that people didn'tknow the story of the UAE's art
history, and one of the versionsof the story was there were
(21:25):
these five artists we call themthe five.
They did this, they did thatand they're all great.
But when I actually did the oralhistory, what I discovered was
it wasn't just five, of course,there were five, because that
was the name of the exhibitionthat named the group.
But in fact that group had in itmultiple people from multiple
cultures, so a Sudanese guy, aDutch guy, a couple Indian guys
(21:51):
you know what I mean and somewomen the women often also get
forgotten but also not onlyartists, also poets, musicians,
actors, playwrights, etc.
And so it was in that momentthat I was like oh so every time
we write, every time we do anexhibition according to a
grouping, there are people thatwe're leaving out.
And so then the then I began tothink much in a much kind of
(22:15):
broader, interconnecting way oflike let's try to look at
influences coming in from Eastand from South and from North,
not only from West, because thefive are almost always
interpreted through a Westernart history lens, in terms of
Duchamp and Fluxus and so on.
So I think that was a reallycritical moment of and that was
(22:40):
what sparked my interest in.
I already was like looking eastand looking at the progressives
in India as another momentwhere artists are sort of
forming their own community inorder to enable innovation.
But now I always think like, ohright, there are artists coming
from India who were part ofAvant-Garde in the UAE and this
means that there's no way youcan study the region's art
(23:03):
history without also studyingthe exchange across continents
that this location makespossible.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
So that's a little bit again a long answer, but I
think it really, really framesexactly kind of what we are
discussing even throughout thisentire season.
Maya, honestly and I think thatit's a perfect transition to
what I really want to ask you,which is the role and importance
of South Asian art, can youexpand on it in the UAE
(23:31):
ecosystem?
I mean this eventually, thisinterest in this entire story
led you to becoming an advisoryboard member of Ishada Art
Foundation, which is anincredibly important position,
but also a founding institutionin this entire story.
So can you please expand onthis regarding South Asian art
and its role within theecosystem?
(23:52):
On?
Speaker 2 (23:53):
this regarding South Asian art and its role within
the ecosystem.
Yeah, and I'll start by sayingsomething that sounds a little
contradictory.
So one of the missions for theuniversity galleries is not to
curate by region, by ethnicityor by country, and I say that
knowing full well that, if youlook at our history, it looks
like we have done that onseveral different occasions.
(24:15):
What it is is to think abouthistories and perspectives that
have been underrepresented butare rich with content and value,
and one of those 2017, was theUAE's own art history, and one
of those 2017, was the UAE's ownart history.
(24:37):
Currently, we have a show onthat looks at the wider Gulf's
contemporary practice today, andso, in a way, it's thinking
regionally, but it's actuallythinking about people who are
here, who are from somewhereelse, so that exchange is always
implicit in how I frame aregionally defined show, and so,
when it comes to South Asianart, I have the same kind of
challenge.
(24:57):
Well, what do we mean by SouthAsian?
Do we mean diaspora and peopleliving in the countries that we
refer to as South Asian?
Is there something South Asianinherent in the art?
I think all of these arequestions that I'm asking to
make a point, which is that it'sa problem, right, that that
(25:19):
phrasing itself asks a questionbefore you even realize it.
And if you don't see thequestion in the phrasing, then
the exhibitions can help youarticulate those questions.
The exhibitions can help youarticulate those questions At a
certain point.
In a way, what Ishara's missiondoes, and what Smita and Sabi
(25:40):
have managed to do, is to almostto allow us to see the work on
its own terms, which is to sayto acknowledge the cultural
references in which it grew upas the art form, but also not to
over-define it according to itscultural background.
(26:04):
And this is the problem youoften run into in kind of
traditional Western museums isthat when an artist from, let's
say, let's say, an artist fromIndia is presented, it's
interpreted, it can often beinterpreted almost exclusively
through the lens of Indianculture, instead of just letting
the art be what the art is.
(26:24):
And so then it adds this kindof separating layer of cultural
framing.
Sometimes that's reallynecessary, other times not so
much.
And I think what the Ashara ArtFoundation allows is for the
work to speak on its own terms,because it's already given the
frame nominally right, theminimal frame which is we focus
(26:47):
on the art from South Asia andthey don't over-define it.
They might have somebody who'sSouth Asian diaspora frame,
which is we focus on the artfrom South Asia, and they don't
over define it.
They might have somebody who'sSouth Asian diaspora, they, you
know, they kind of let it, letthat sort of shift and move as
necessary and they don't limitit to only India, for example,
which I think that was.
(27:07):
You know, that could be aquestion like where do you draw
that line, which I think thatcould be a question like where
do you draw that line?
And to let it be in a way itsown provocation as a term.
And then that way, then the artreally, it sort of shakes off
(27:28):
the weight of having torepresent an entire culture, the
weight of having to representan entire culture.
So having a space where thatweight is removed, I think
allows the art to sing and tohave its own value and its own
voice and not have to stand forthe voices of all South Asians.
And this, to me, is justextremely, extremely important,
(27:53):
extremely, extremely important,at the same time as I know that
the, the Ashara people are verycareful also not to, you know,
not to think of it in what wewould sometimes call ghettoizing
terms, where we're like youknow, this is not Asian enough,
you know what I mean Likethere's not this sort of like
evaluation beyond, just likewe're interested in the art from
these communities and thiscomes back to my point about
community.
(28:15):
What we're actually talkingabout are communities, not some
kind of generic cultural set oftraits, and so once I begin to
look at their exhibitions asrepresentations of artists and
their voices within their largercommunity, then it becomes a
much healthier exchange, and sowhen I think of our space in
(28:36):
dialogue with theirs, it's amuch easier exchange, also
because we are together.
Ishara and NYU Abu Dhabi are ina shared community, we're in a
shared thinking space and we'rethought partners.
We're in a shared thinkingspace and we're thought partners
, and so there's not a wallthat's created by by the, the
term South Asian, it's actually.
(28:57):
It actually opens doors ofexchange rather than narrowing
it and I think this is a reallyhard to articulate term but
something or concept, butsomething that's going to make
or break our ability to thinkabout art in a global context
and I think you've articulatedit perfectly and essentially the
(29:19):
idea that we don't drawboundaries or place artists in
boxes and right.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
That's essentially um truly the ethos ofara Art
Foundation, as Smita evenhonestly articulated during her
episode as well.
My final question for you, maya, is what's next for NYU, abu
Dhabi, the art galleries, andwhat's upcoming in your work?
Speaker 2 (29:49):
So, as the increase as Saadiyat Islands museums come
online, we have the ZayedNational Museum, which is a
heritage and history museum,followed by the Guggenheim Abu
Dhabi, as well as Team Lab andthe Natural History Museum.
As these come online, and asthe Cultural Foundation has come
(30:13):
back online, and as 421 and theMISA projects kick into gear,
we have a really wonderful newchapter opening for us.
So we're at our 10-yearanniversary.
We opened 10 years ago inNovember of 2014.
And I'm really happy becausewhat this means is that we can
now really dig into the areaswhere I have found kind of the
(30:38):
deepest audience engagement, butalso the things getting a feel
for what can we do that nobodyelse can, and I'll give you some
examples.
Yeah, so one of the things thatwe can do that is very sort of
a characteristic universitygallery or museum role in an
ecosystem to play, which is togive emerging or mid-career
(31:02):
artists like a major,substantial survey and
monographic book publication.
Right.
So not just a catalog, but atrue book that does a deep dive
into their practice, and thatoften is something that can
really take an artist's careerto the next level.
A lot of times, universityshows generate the kind of
(31:26):
knowledge production.
You need to then be at thelevel at which major museums
begin to.
They begin to be the sort ofthing that you would start to
see in major museums, and sothat's one of the roles that a
university museum plays inecosystems very often is, and a
lot of times when you see amajor museum doing a
(31:47):
retrospective, it'll follow onthe heels of projects like that
being done by university museumsand galleries.
So part of our job is to takerisks in addition to this kind
of identifying really key talentand questions and giving it its
(32:07):
first major platform talent andquestions and giving it its
first major platform.
Another thing that we do is lookat artistic practice on its
most experimental outer edges,like what is happening in a
particular art movement, in aparticular art community, in a
particular style, in aparticular region, and sort of
(32:32):
taking a look or a snapshot.
So that's the current show wehave on, which is like what are
some of the most important orinfluential or thought-provoking
things that we've seen in theGCC in the last five years?
But then, you know, anotherexample would be be the moon,
which is not.
You know, this is a Swissartist who does these um, low
(32:54):
tech, sound installations, andwe did a major survey of his
work with a new commission and abook, uh, back in twenties I
don't even remember which yearit was 16, 17, 18, 2018, I think
and um, and that would be anexample of somebody who's doing
work that is not verycommercially viable, right, like
he can't sell his art thateasily or he could, but it's not
(33:17):
the kind of thing you just hangon your wall in your dining
room but it's work that reallydeserves deeper study.
And so our space is a spacethat allows artists to grow and
flourish ideas that may not havea commercial value, but have an
institutional and educationaland thought-provoking kind of
(33:38):
value.
And then, finally, curatorialpractice and training of
students is something veryspecific to what we do.
So one of the things I make itmy business to be thinking
always about what does a curatordo?
Why do we exist?
How do we exist, but whatmodels are there that haven't
(33:59):
been fully explored?
What are the problems of museumhierarchies in terms of
audience versus curator?
The curator is usually thevoice of authority.
How can we experiment withdispersing that authority and
allowing exhibitions to be aspace of dialogue instead of a
space of hierarchy?
And so really thinking about theexhibition space as a space of
(34:23):
investigation andexperimentation, in whatever
form that takes.
Major museums have a differentremit from us.
Commercial galleries have tosell art.
Our job is to investigate andpush forward the thinking in our
field and that is consistentwith the university's role and
(34:44):
to help shape the futuregenerations of thinkers and
practitioners Not to shape them,but to make a space for them to
grow while they're here, ifthat makes sense.
So my hope is that the studentswe're training today and the
curatorial assistants that we'retraining today will go on to
lead museums, art movements,curatorial practices, major
(35:07):
exhibitions in the future, hereand abroad.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Amazing.
Thank you so much, Maya.
I think you've given us a lotto think about and perspectives,
not only regarding curatorialpractices, but also the
interaction between, like yousaid, museums and universities.
I really believe this episodewill add so much value to the
audience.
(35:32):
I thank you so much for yourtime and hopefully we meet soon
in Abu Dhabi perhaps, or Dubai,I would love it.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
I would love it.
Thank you so much also for youknow I think that I didn't say
this clearly, but it's always onmy mind which is one of the
most challenging things, I think, for a growing ecosystem is the
role that you play, which issomebody to help us tell the
story of what we're doing, butalso to question it, you know,
(36:04):
and to go a little deeper and toprod and you know, see what's
there and beyond the marketing.
And I think that you know, evenjust interviewing people and
bringing the stories together isreally important because
otherwise it disappears.
So thank you so much for thework that you're doing.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Thank you for listening and make sure to
follow at Ishara Art Foundation,as well as at NYUAD Art Gallery
and, of course, at the CurationPod, to ensure that you do not
miss another episode.
This season was incredible.
There are four episodes totalto the Ishara Art Foundation and
Radical Contemporary season.
(36:49):
Make sure to go back and listento any of the ones that you've
missed and I will see you all onthe next one.
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