GCC, Positive Pathways (+) Version II (2016), All images © GCC; Courtesy of the artists and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, NY Photo: Adam Reich

GCC, an art collective tapping on cultural and social implications of change in the Arab Gulf Region, last exhibited in New York in 2014, when MoMA PS1 opened the group’s first American solo exhibition, Achievements in Retrospective, followed by their inclusion in the New Museum exhibition Here and Elsewhere.  The collective, comprised of eight artist-“delegates,” all born or raised in the region, returns to the city for Positive Pathways (+) at Mitchell-Innes & Nash this month, presenting the show’s eponymous sculpture, originally exhibited at the DIS-curated Berlin Biennale this summer, alongside a group of sculptural reliefs created using Thermoforming techniques. (more…)

Sophia Al-Maria, still from Black Friday (2016). Digital video projected vertically, color, sound; 16:36 min. Collection of the artist; courtesy Anna Lena Films, Paris, and The Third Line, Dubai.

Currently showing on the first floor of the Whitney Museum is Black Friday, the American-Qatari artist Sophia Al-Maria’s solo debut in the United States.  Born in the U.S. and educated in London and Egypt, Al-Maria has been a central voice in the Gulf region’s burgeoning contemporary art scene.  At the helm of the art collective Gulf Cooperation Council as a founding member, Al-Maria’s work drives at a concept of “Gulf Futurism,” a term she coined to define the rapidly evolving economic and social landscape of the region.  As a writer, researcher and filmmaker, Al-Maria has been delivering a substantial body of work on oil-fueled wealth and its political/social consequences in the Middle East.

Sophia Al-Maria, still from The Litany (2016). Digital video projected vertically, color, sound; 16:36 min. Collection of the artist; courtesy Anna Lena Films, Paris, and The Third Line, Dubai. (more…)

Artist Sophia Al-Maria is profiled on CNN this week, as she prepares to open an exhibition at the Whitney Museum at the end of this month, and reflects on her generation’s experience of digital technology.  “A few years ago I had a real feeling of heaviness through things like Facebook, like I was dragging the ghost of every person I had ever met. Maybe it doesn’t create community in the way that people think because with the ability to post whatever you want at any time, you also get the ugly side,” she says. (more…)

Asad Raza with work by Jordan Wolfson, Jessica Dickinson and bedsheets from his childhood selected by Rachel Rose, via Art Observed

“Hey, I’m Asad,”  Asad Raza greets the viewer at the ground floor of his apartment building on Spring Street, before leading them up the stairs to his modest one-bedroom.  Over the past month, Raza has brought a number of visitors through the space for Home Show, a group exhibition of site-specific and performative works that he compiled from a close group of friends, including Tino Seghal, Camille Henrot, Rachel Rose and many more, guiding them through the show with an enthusiastic flair that intertwines his own personal history and life with the work of his friends and collaborators.

A heart pump loaned to the artist from his father, via Art Observed

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