The NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) Art Gallery marks ten years since its founding with the opening of its spring exhibition, In Real Time. Opening today, 22nd February, the exhibition will continue to grow and change over the coming months, “In real time.”

The exhibition is curated by Executive Director of the NYUAD Art Gallery Maya Allison, with a curatorial intervention by Curator and Research Assistant Professor Duygu Demir, who recently joined NYU Abu Dhabi. Demir is collaborating with artist Gözde İlkin to install an entire scenography, to be activated by performers in the coming months.

Maya Allison commented, “Every time I embark on a new curatorial project, I ask the ‘why’ of art. This line of questioning is a bracing, uncomfortable process, but a very rewarding one because the answer changes depending on what is happening in the world. In Real Time emerges in response to a sense of urgency, today: perhaps art can offer something different from the news, from the scroll, and yet not distract us or make us forget.

As the show evolves, history unfolds around us. What do we need from a space for art in this particular moment, in this particular part of the world, in a university, in an academic gallery? I hope this exhibition allows for any number of responses.”

The NYUAD Art Gallery’s founding decade has seen major artist commissions, book publications, and historical research exhibitions from across the globe that have earned it international recognition and awards. It also supports an exhibition laboratory, the Project Space, for the academic and regional community, including MFA and undergraduate final projects, faculty-curated exhibitions, and the work of regional emerging artists. Together, the spaces of NYUAD’s Art Gallery serve as a testing ground for curatorial strategies that nourish innovation around exhibition practice in the Gulf, and in dialogue with the global art world.