Abu Dhabi: As a result of continued interest following a successful COP28 and the Year of Sustainability, the closing date of Blane De St. Croix: Horizon has been extended, and the exhibition will continue at the Art Gallery at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) Art Gallery until January 21.

Over the last year, American artist Blane De St. Croix was in residence in the UAE, to develop four major new works commissioned by the NYUAD Art Gallery. The resulting exhibition responds both to his study of the physical landscape of the UAE, his interviews with climate experts working in the UAE, his exchange with faculty from across NYUAD’s divisions, and surveys De St. Croix’s work from ecosystems around the world. The largest of these, Salt Lake Excerpt, UAE, was co-created with theater artist Joanna Settle, an Arts Professor and Associate Dean at NYUAD, in response to the salt lakes and “sabkhas” (salt flats) of the UAE. Together they designed an immersive  light, sound, and sculpture installation made from at least 50,000 shredded plastic water bottles, donated by DGrade, a UAE-based plastic recycling company.

De St. Croix drew on many areas of faculty research at NYUAD in the course of his residency and in his work development. His new series of “infinite landscapes” is based on the UAE’s deserts, developed from work with NYUAD’s Research Visualization and Fabrication lab. He also developed his previous research on the Himalayas, after exchange with NYUAD’s Himalaya Water Project, an interdisciplinary faculty cluster based in the Arts and Humanities, who are conducting research on the Himalayas. Those dialogues led to High Peaks: Himachal (Snow Mountain), in which sculptures of Mount Everest and five other peaks loom over the visitor, and appear to be melting and collapsing.

The exhibition has been running concurrently with NYUAD’s chairing of the Universities Climate Network (UCN). Comprising 31 UAE-based institutions of higher education, the UCN collaborates to facilitate dialogues, workshops, public events, policy briefs, and youth participation in the months prior to and beyond COP28.

Blane De St. Croix: Horizon runs through January 21, from Tuesday through Sunday, 12-8pm. For more details visit here.

About Blane De St. Croix

De St. Croix’s work has been widely exhibited both nationally and internationally. His most recent exhibition titled How to Move a Landscape was a major solo presentation at MASS MoCA (USA) in 2021. The artist has won numerous awards and distinctions for his sculpture as well as for his research. Most significantly, the US National Science Foundation awarded him a National Science Foundation grant to develop a research project in the Yukon Arctic together with two scientists. He is also the recipient of the Lee Krasner Award for Lifetime of Artistic Achievement, which is the latest in a series of grants the Pollock-Krasner Foundation has awarded him. De St. Croix has also been recognized for his artistic practice by various leading arts foundations through fellowships and grants, such as the New York State Council on the Arts/New York Foundation for the Arts (NYSCA/NYFA) Artist Fellowship for Architecture/Environmental Structures/Design; the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship; the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant for Painters and Sculptors; the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Sculpture; and the Smithsonian Institute’s Artist Research Fellowship. The artist has also undertaken prestigious artist residencies, including several fellowships at both the MacDowell Colony (New Hampshire, USA) and Yaddo Artist Residencies (New York, USA).

About The Art Gallery at NYU Abu Dhabi 

www.nyuad-artgallery.org

Established in 2014, The NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) Art Gallery is the Gulf’s first of its kind, and among the only university galleries in the region with a program of scholarly and experimental museum exhibitions. Supporting the progress made by other arts institutions within the UAE, The NYUAD Art Gallery and the projects it supports serve the local arts community as a testing ground for new and innovative curatorial approaches that nourish the dialogue around exhibition practice in the Gulf. The program is recognized for mapping new territories and ideas, presenting exhibitions by internationally established artists, curators, and scholars. A regular book publication program is a core part of its curatorial frame within its academic mission. In addition, its auxiliary venue, the Project Space, is an exhibition laboratory for UAE-based artists and curators Situated within NYU Abu Dhabi, the community of which hails from over 125 countries, the Gallery, the Project Space, and the Gallery's Reading Room collectively open up artistic opportunities and initiate regional and global dialogue.

About NYU Abu Dhabi

https://nyuad.nyu.edu/en/

NYU Abu Dhabi is the first comprehensive liberal arts and research campus in the Middle East to be operated abroad by a major American research university. NYU Abu Dhabi has integrated a highly selective program with majors in the sciences, engineering, social sciences, arts, and humanities with a world center for advanced research. Its campus enables students to succeed in an increasingly interdependent world, and to advance cooperation and progress on humanity’s shared challenges. NYU Abu Dhabi’s high-achieving students have come from over 125 countries and speak over 100 languages. Together, NYU's campuses in New York, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai form the backbone of a unique global university, giving faculty and students opportunities to experience varied learning environments and immersion in other cultures at one or more of the numerous study-abroad sites NYU maintains on six continents.