Exhibition walkthrough with Talinn Grigor, Professor of Art History, Contemporary Global Architecture and Art Critical and (post)Colonial Theory, University of California, Davis.

In this talk, Sarah-Neel Smith, Assistant Professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism, Maryland Institute College of Art, will discuss Turkey’s art world of the 1960s through the lens of Abby Weed Grey’s collecting activities, focusing on the intersection of art and international discourses about democracy in the wake of World War II.

This symposium organized by Matthew S. Santirocco, Professor of Classics and Angelo J. Ranieri Director of Ancient Studies (NYU), will bring together a panel of speakers to explore the history and archaeology of ancient Persepolis—along with its revival in the modern era, in the visual imaginations of artists such as Parviz Tanavoli and others. Free and open to the public, RSVP required.

Working in the aftermath of the 1979 Revolution, contemporary Iranian women artists are embracing themes of gender identity, repression, religion, and memory. In this panel, speakers will also discuss the complexities of cultural duality and the nuances of an evolving artistic discourse. Moderated by artist Shirin Neshat.

Exhibition walkthrough with Summer A. Sloane-Britt, Graduate Curatorial Assistant, Grey Art Gallery, and PhD student, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU.

This Turkish drama, directed by Metin Erksan, features Müşfik Kenter as a poor painter who falls in love with the image of a female singer while at work in one of the large villas on Istanbul’s Princes’ Islands. What happens when she appears in the flesh? Sevmek Zamani is a remarkable example of the Turkish new wave that has rarely been screened or written about outside Turkey. 1:25 min., black-and-white, in Turkish with English subtitles. Introduced by Farbod Honarpisheh, Postdoctoral Associate, Film & Media Studies, Yale University.

Ali Mirsepassi, Albert Gallatin Research Excellence Professor of Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies in NYU’s Gallatin School and Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, will present this documentary, which he co-created with Hamed Yousefi. The film explores the life and thought of Iranian philosopher Ahmad Fardid (1910-1994) in his intellectual crusade to halt rising Western influence in Iran. 85 min.

Exhibition walkthrough with Ally Mintz, Exhibitions and Publications Manager, Grey Art Gallery, NYU.

Panel discussion moderated by Susan Hapgood, Executive Director, International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), New York, and Founder, Mumbai Art Room; with speakers Hadieh Shafie, artist, and Hamed Yousefi, filmmaker and PhD student in Art History, Northwestern University, who will explore the relevance to and influence of the archive in terms of contemporary art-making and art-historical research.

Speakers Duygu Demir, PhD candidate in the History, Theory, and Criticism of Art and Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Sonal Khullar, Associate Professor of Art History, University of Washington; and Hamed Yousefi, filmmaker and PhD student in Art History, Northwestern University, will present their perspectives on artistic modernism in the 1960s and ’70s in Turkey, India, and Iran, respectively. Exploring the political context of modernist art in the period’s global imaginaries, they will examine the circulation of modernist discourses between these regions and the West—and also reveal how such exchanges, at both regional and global levels, produced new forms of modernist art. 

A collaboration between filmmaker Avijit Mukul Kishore and architect Rohan Shivkumar, this documentary explores Indian modernity, the citizen, and the architecture of the home through four buildings made over the course of a century: the gigantic Lukshmi Vilas Palace in Baroda; Villa Shodhan in Ahmedabad, designed by Le Corbusier; Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad; and public housing in Delhi designed for Pakistani refugees. 54 min., in Hindi and English with English subtitles. Introduced by the filmmaker, with Q&A.

Exhibition walkthrough with Noel W. Anderson, Art & Art Professions (Steinhardt), NYU, who will focus on prints in the exhibition.

How do politics, diplomacy, and other worldviews influence both private collecting and exhibition organizing? What factors enter into a curator’s selection of works for a show? How do museums and other institutions help shape a collector’s identity? These questions and more will be considered by speakers Sean Anderson, Associate Curator of Architecture and Design, Museum of Modern Art; Beth Citron, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rubin Museum of Art; and Saloni Mathur, Professor of Art History, UCLA. Moderated by Lynn Gumpert, Director, Grey Art Gallery, NYU.

Join us for the opening reception of Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby Weed Grey Collection.