In the past year the way we visit events and socialise has changed loads, and we’ve become used to catch ups over video call or attending virtual events.
With culture, adapting has been essential, and with more time on our hands creativity has come to the fore and new connections have been forged through technology.
Embracing technology and connecting the world with culture, The NYUAD Art Gallery has launched it’s first-ever digital exhibition.
The Not In, Of, Along, or Relating to a Line exhibition is free and open to the public from Wednesday January 20 to Saturday July 10.
On show, the exhibition features contemporary art co-curated by chief curator at NYU Abu Dhabi and executive director of the NYUAD Art Gallery Maya Allison and NYUAD faculty member and artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg.
Visit the exhibition digitally and you can see four commissions and 14 artworks on display.
The theme for the exhibition focused on the restrictions and freedoms that a digital landscape offers with the commissions exploring the pandemic’s role in our technological lives.
Commissions for the exhibition have been created by artists Cao Fei, Lee Blalock, Addie Wagenknecht and Maya Allison.
Other artists featured in the exhibition include Sophia Al-Maria, Zach Blas, Eva and Franco Mattes.
“We began our curatorial process with a question: what might a virtual exhibition be? In the pre-pandemic norm of exhibitions, you and your body physically enter the exhibition hall, to be surrounded by, immersed in, art,” said Maya Allison.
“However, most digitally born art doesn’t enter that physical exhibition hall so easily.
“As a non-object, it lives always behind a computer screen, between what we might call the ‘object-ness’ of the monitor, and the ‘virtual-ness’ of the digital artwork’s original form.
“Today, we often hold that screen, that world, in the palm of our hands. The smartphone was already an extension of our bodies before the pandemic — in a way, we have all already embarked on a journey of self-modification through technology.
“Through these works, each artist here takes as their subject this matter of agency, self-determination, and technology’s promise of liberation or threat of suffocation.”
We can’t wait to check it out for ourselves.
Free. Until July 10. Visit www.nyuad-artgallery.org/not-a-line/.
Looking for more to do in Abu Dhabi?
State of the art
New masterpieces have been put on display at Louvre Abu Dhabi including works by Monet and Van Gogh.
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Celebrate the Year of the Ox
Dai Pai Dong has launched a host of new dining deals to celebrate Chinese New Year.
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Explore the newest green space
Al Fay Park has opened on Reem Island and there’s loads to see at the cool new hangout in the city.
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