Ancient Through Modern: A Collection of Uncertain Objects, Part 1, 2014
Commissioned by the Abraaj Group Art Prize 2014
Ancient Through Modern: A Collection of Uncertain Objects is a wall installation consisting of painting, ceramics, and collage arranged to echo the displays in popular museums such as the Louvre in Paris, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, or the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Taking cultural nostalgia as a subject, this work investigates how museums, and the objects displayed within them, serve a longing for mythical pasts and support claims of origin even as Modernism continues to be privileged as the high point of contemporary visual culture. Visual art, however, remains much attached to the conventions of European Modernism. The work blurs the distance between ancient and modern, manufactured and made, exposing the irrationality of the cultural value ascribed to material objects.
Curated by Nada Raza, the exhibition of commissioned works by the five winning artists (Abbas Akhavan, Kamrooz Aram, Bouchra Khalili, Basim Magdy and Anup Mathew Thomas) at Art Dubai 2014 (March 19 - 22, 2014) was titled Garden and Spring.
link: Abraaj Group Art Prize 2014
Ancient Through Modern: A Collection of Uncertain Objects, 2014
Mixed media installation, approximately 96 x 171 x 22 inches
Ancient Through Modern: A Collection of Uncertain Objects, 2014
Mixed media installation, approximately 96 x 171 x 22 inches
Ancient Through Modern: A Collection of Uncertain Objects (detail), 2014
Mixed media installation, approximately 96 x 171 x 22 inches
Ancient Through Modern: A Collection of Uncertain Objects (detail), 2014
Mixed media installation, approximately 96 x 171 x 22 inches
Ancient Through Modern: A Collection of Uncertain Objects (detail), 2014
Mixed media installation, approximately 96 x 171 x 22 inches
Ancient Through Modern: A Collection of Uncertain Objects (detail), 2014
Mixed media installation, approximately 96 x 171 x 22 inches
Ancient Through Modern: A Collection of Uncertain Objects (detail), 2014
Mixed media installation, approximately 96 x 171 x 22 inches
Ancient Through Modern: A Collection of Uncertain Objects (detail), 2014
Mixed media installation, approximately 96 x 171 x 22 inches
Ancient Through Modern: A Collection of Uncertain Objects (detail), 2014
Mixed media installation, approximately 96 x 171 x 22 inches
Ancient Through Modern: A Collection of Uncertain Objects (detail), 2014
Mixed media installation, approximately 96 x 171 x 22 inches
Ancient Through Modern: A Collection of Uncertain Objects (detail), 2014
Mixed media installation, approximately 96 x 171 x 22 inches
Ancient Through Modern: A Collection of Uncertain Objects (detail), 2014
Mixed media installation, approximately 96 x 171 x 22 inches
Ancient Through Modern: A Collection of Uncertain Objects (detail), 2014
Mixed media installation, approximately 96 x 171 x 22 inches
