{"id":56173,"date":"2024-06-05T17:33:17","date_gmt":"2024-06-05T13:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/?p=56173"},"modified":"2024-06-05T18:37:23","modified_gmt":"2024-06-05T14:37:23","slug":"in-real-time-art-as-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/in-real-time-art-as-process\/","title":{"rendered":"In Real Time: art as process"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Most art exhibitions are by their nature static; the curator decides a theme, the artist(s) create work or supply existing pieces that fit the theme, they\u2019re placed in an exhibition space, we go to see them there. The dynamic elements happen right up to the point where the show opens, with everyone involved participating in their own way \u2013 curators, artists, technicians, lighting designers, marketing people. And then it all stops: the visitors are the active participants, the exhibition itself is static.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s not the case with In Real Time<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, the Spring exhibition at the NYUAD Art Gallery now approaching the last few days of its three-months run. Some of the art didn\u2019t exist at all when the show opened. Some of the artists joined during the run. Some of the art was performative, featuring music and dance. Some of the works were amended and accreted during the run, in a couple of cases with the audience\u2019s involvement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maya Allison, the gallery\u2019s Executive Director and Chief Curator, had long been thinking about an exhibition which would be more dynamic than the norm \u2013 one in which the process of making the works themselves is also visible to the audience. The process is as much part of the art as the end result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Allison was originally thinking about murals for the Art Gallery\u2019s Spring show. In street art, for instance, the creation is often a public act \u2013 seeing the work emerge from a blank background, seeing the wall change and become something else, is part of the experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that idea expanded to include other works that might take shape in the space itself. \u201cI realised that what I really liked about the idea was not so much the murals themselves, but the idea that the artist was in the space and that we got to be a part of the birth of the artwork. So even if we see it after it’s finished, you can feel that the artist was only recently there \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duygu Demir, appointed the Gallery\u2019s curator in September last year, got involved in the planning discussions, and suggested including a specifically performative element. \u201cA recent project I had undertaken in Istanbul had me thinking about this,\u201d Demir told us, \u201cand I suggested it should be included in the exhibition. G\u00f6zde \u0130lkin’s Entrusted Ground<\/em> is an installation work that was adapted from her solo exhibition in 2022, where the work doubles as a stage for sound and movement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Installation view: G\u00f6zde \u0130lkin, Entrusted Ground<\/em> (2022-ongoing). Dyed and stitched fabrics, fibre filling, stones, twigs, video, 3-channel sound, performance. Photo: John Varghese<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There were three public performances which activated this installation, collaborations between \u0130lkin, choreographer Asl\u0131 \u00d6zt\u00fcrk, musician Berke Can \u00d6zcan, and three dancers. The performance and the installation revolves around the classical elements of fire, air, earth, and water; \u00d6zt\u00fcrk\u2019s choreography carries the imagery of \u0130lkin\u2019s two-dimensional textile works into the three-dimensional space, matching movement to the artist\u2019s soft sculptures to create moving landscapes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Demir notes \u201cthere was real synergy when G\u00f6zde was installing her work \u2013 Julie Bectom was performing in the space at the same time as Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh and Hesam Rahmanian installed their work, and Chafa [Gaddar] was working on her fresco mural\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh and Hesam Rahmanian also collaborated with dancers \u2013 but then, production is always performance in their art-making. Their installation Take a poiesis capsule with a glass of shadow on an empty stomach<\/em> is a sprawl of wall paintings, videos and sculpted vessels; a video montage shows Butoh dancer Julie Becton Gillum making the sculptures by shaping clay over her eyes, between her toes and with her teeth during a performance at the exhibition opening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chafa Gaddar is the artist whose practice is probably closest to Allison\u2019s original vision, incidentally; she typically makes site-specific and public artworks, often created in public, often murals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Chafa Ghaddar, Breathing Grounds<\/em> (2024). Commissioned by the NYUAD Art Gallery. Photo: John Varghese\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sol LeWitt is another starting point for the idea of dynamic art. His Wall Drawing 797 <\/em>is an invitation for visitors to draw irregular lines in four colours following LeWitt\u2019s instructions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact In Real Time<\/em> wasn\u2019t didactic: the work on show didn\u2019t necessarily have to be dynamic. Says Allison: \u201cI said to the artists, \u2018if you want to install before the opening day, that\u2019s ok. And if not, that’s ok too.\u2019 Like, you can install whenever seems right \u2013 and you can keep installing if you want. All I wanted from them was a letter of intent to say what they might do\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the event, most of the eight artists originally invited did install something prior to the opening; but some artists kept adding all the way through the run, and others were invited to take part actually during the run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere were some artists I invited who felt that it wasn’t a fit for what they were doing at the time, or they weren’t in the right headspace for it, or they were just too busy. But I think it was resoundingly positive that some people were willing to take a leap of faith on the project.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s an element of dynamism even in works that were created prior to the exhibition. Cristiana de Marchi\u2019s two paired works \u2013 The Echo of the Void <\/em>(2021) and Black Square<\/em> (2022), hand-knitted wool squares with the dimensions of the smallest known prison cells \u2013 were already made, but they do invite you to reflect on your own body in the spaces she created. So instead of it being about the artist having been present in the space, it becomes about you noticing your own physical presence in this space. \u201cYou\u2019re confronted with the actual reality of that size in relationship to your own body,” says Allison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cristiana de Marchi, The Echo of the Void<\/em> (2021, left); Black Square<\/em> (2022, right). Photo: John Varghese<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So how did the exhibition work out? Curator Duygu Demir said it was hard work for the gallery team, but that there were some practical positives \u2013 not least because \u201cthe programming and the exhibition were one whole, not two separate aspects”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She adds, \u201cI also thought the artists really got a feel for each other’s practices if they were present in the space at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The audience was harder to read. \u201cI am glad some professors used the spaces for classes and workshops,\u201d says Demir. \u201cThe works by Nujoom Alghanem and Sol LeWitt both relied completely on participation and were met with great interest, which tells me again that there was two-way communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Demir\u2019s conclusion: \u201cI do think real physical presence in the space accounts for a lot, which this project illustrates well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And would Maya Allison do it again? She smiles. \u201cThis is the sort of thing you only do once, I think. If I were to do it again, it would be a different kind of exhibition.\u201d She says In Real Time was very specific to the moment, the way she was thinking at the time, and that is exactly how the curatorial mind should be working \u2013 asking questions and posing possibilities rather than looking for answers and laying down rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat it did do was help loosen up the form of the exhibition in my mind, give it a little more breathing room. The idea that it begins as one thing and it changes over time was very liberating. So it might affect how I think about future iterations of exhibitions, it might help shake off some of the static feel of most exhibitions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nujoom Alghanem, Geography in Transformation<\/em> (2022-ongoing). Nails, cotton string, burlap, sound, and audience participation
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cArt is always a trace of a moment where the artist is creating something. The story that I tell as a curator about how a work was made becomes part of the work. And that moment where we imagine the artist making the work might be something that I dig deeper into in my future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI loved it that there was a moment when a label on a blank wall said \u2018there will be a work by Sol LeWitt here\u2019. That was sort of a nice way of having the exhibition exist first in your imagination.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s an attractive goal for a curator: \u201cthere’s a way that art lives in your imagination that I think is so compelling. I’m kind of interested in how a gallery exhibition might be able to engage some of that quality of imagination\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Real Time<\/a> shows at The Art Gallery at NYU Abu Dhabi <\/strong><\/strong>to 9 June, midday to 8pm (closed Mondays). Admission is free and open to all.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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