Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby Weed Grey Collection

Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby Weed Grey Collection surveys art from three nations where unique and vibrant forms of modernism sprang forth in the 1960s and 1970s. Challenging histories of artistic modernism that too often begin and end in the West, “Modernisms” explores an under-recognized flowering of innovation and risk-taking in art beyond Europe and North America.

Influenced by local traditions, cultural exchange and the sights and sounds of modern life, artists in Iran, Turkey and India forged distinctive new modes of expression. From Iranian and Turkish artists who explored calligraphy and ornamentation through avant-garde abstraction, to Indian painters whose expressive canvases drew upon Hindu iconography, the 114 works in Modernisms reflect the lively dialogue between East and West, past and present. These works testify to both the continuity of culture and the disruption of modernity.

Organized by New York University’s Grey Art Gallery, Modernisms draws from the collection of curator and patron Abby Weed Grey. Grey traveled widely in Asia and the Middle East, searching for art that brought the visual language of modernity into dialogue with non-Western heritages. With a robust collection of some 700 paintings, sculptures and works on paper, she founded the Grey Art Gallery in 1975, stimulating learning through cross-cultural exchange. Through her collection, this exhibition tells a story of “multiple modernities,” reflecting the diversity of formal and cultural responses to the changing world of the 1960s and 1970s.

The exhibition will be on view at Grey Art Gallery at NYU from Sept. 10 to Dec. 7, 2019 before coming to The Block. The exhibition is curated for The Block by Kathleen Bickford Berzock, associate director of curatorial affairs, and Michael Metzger, Pick-Laudati Curator of Media Arts.

This exhibition is accompanied by a companion installation Regional Modernisms: Works from the Block’s Permanent Collection. This selection considers the ways American artists have added their voices to global dialogues of modern art while reflecting local contexts. The installation is generously supported by the Norton S. Walbridge Fund, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and The Graduate School, Northwestern University. It has been curated by Cait DiMartino, Block Curatorial Graduate Fellow, 2019–20.
 

Catalog: Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby Weed Grey Collection

240 pages | Color |  Hardcover

Published Oct. 2019 | Hirmer Publishers

Editor: Lynn Gumpert

Modernisms is the first book to offer a crosscultural exploration of modern art from Iran, Turkey, and India. Focusing on select works from the Abby Weed Grey Collection of Modern Asian and Middle Eastern Art at New York University, the contributions here discuss significant pieces from the 1960s and early 1970s. Along the way, Modernisms outlines a welcome alternative to the long-dominant focus on North American and western European art.
 
With nearly seven hundred artworks, the Abby Weed Grey Collection represents the largest institutional assemblage of modern Iranian and Turkish art outside of Iran and Turkey as well as the most important trove of modern Indian art in an American university museum. Modernisms, which accompanies an exhibition at NYU’s Grey Art Gallery, introduces paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints from the three countries along with biographical narratives on the artists. More than one hundred color illustrations make the book an authoritative visual resource.

Featuring fresh scholarship from a range of voices, among them Fereshteh Daftari, Shiva Balaghi, Susan Hapgood, and Ranjit Hoskote, Modernisms powerfully argues for the importance of nonwestern art as a component of modernity—and defies the long-held belief that other forms of modernism can only be second-rate.

Order Now

Press

	Visual art winter preview: 10 shows to look forward to in 2020 Chicago Tribune, Lori Waxman (January 2, 2020)
	‘Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights From NYU’s Abby Weed Grey Collection’ Review: Globe-Trotting to Build a Unique Collection Wall Street Journal, Michael FitzGerald (September 17, 2019)
	"Goings on About Town: Modernisms" The New Yorker, Johanna Fateman (October 2019)