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Parviz Tanavoli, "Caged Bird on Horse" (Wonders of the Universe series), 2001. Gouache on lithograph, 7 5/8 x 4 3/8 in. Grey Art Gallery, New York University Art Collection, Gift of the artist on the occasion of the exhibition “Global/Local 1960–2015: Six Artists from Iran,” G2016.1
Like his sculptures, Parviz Tanavoli’s works on paper utilize motifs from Persian culture, including symbols of folklore and mysticism and objects found in bazaars. On a visit to a Tehran bazaar in the late 1990s, Tanavoli purchased a group of old folios adorned with lithographs including calligraphy. The lithographically printed page on view here derives from the 13th–century treatise by physician-astronomer Zakaria al-Qazwini entitled The Wonders of Creation and Strange Beings, an encyclopedia of the world that combines science and legend. Tanavoli preserves the lithograph’s main personages and paints his own subjects on the background.
Come see this work in the Grey's new exhibition, "Mostly New: Selections from the NYU Art Collection." The museum is now open Mondy through Friday, 12–5 pm.
Image description: An image of a rectangular printed and painted page that is worn and torn at the edges, stained brown with age. The page bears lines of Persian calligraphy, encased by a rectangular border. Within the border, alongside the calligraphy, is a colorful painted scene of a handsome grey horse that walks with a gold birdcage on its back. Within the cage is a red-eyed, green-feathered bird that seems to swell beyond the confines of the gold bars.
Installation image of "Mostly New: Selections from the NYU Art Collection." Photo by Nicholas Papananias, courtesy Grey Art Gallery, New York University
Artists featured, from left to right: Wally Reinhardt, Miwa Yanagi, Yayoi Kusama, Parviz Tanavoli, Farah Al Qasimi Samira Abbassy, Nicky Nodjoumi
Image description: One high, white wall of an art gallery with blonde wood floors is decorated with framed paintings, drawings, and prints. At the center of the image is a bronze sculpture inside a vitrine on a pedestal.
🖼 Keith Haring, "Bill T. Jones," 1984. Color offset lithograph, 35 x 23 in. Grey Art Gallery, New York University Art Collection. Gift of Denise Green, 2016.9.2. Artwork © Keith Haring Foundation.
📸 Photo by Tseng Kwong Chi © Muna Tseng Dance Projects Inc
This vibrant poster by Keith Haring, made to advertise one of the artist's exhibitions at Tony Shafrazi Gallery, depicts renowned dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones covered from head to toe in Haring's signature pictograms. The poster is based on a photograph of Jones taken by Tseng Kwong Chi, a key documentarian of Manhattan’s vibrant downtown scene. Haring's poster documents a body-painting collaboration between himself, Jones, and Tseng—the project was sparked in 1983 when Jones and Haring crossed paths in London.
While the Grey's exhibition "Mostly New: Selections from the NYU Art Collection" is presently open only to current NYU students, staff, and faculty, we are sharing featured artworks from the New York University Art Collection on our page. We hope to see all members of the public again very soon—please stay tuned for updates on our opening status.
While the Grey Art Gallery's exhibition, "Mostly New: Selections from the NYU Art Collection," is presently open only to current NYU students, staff, and faculty, we will be sharing featured artworks from the Art Collection on our page. This photograph by Emirati artist Farah Al Qasimi offers viewers a playful glimpse into life in the Persian Gulf.
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Al Qasimi's highly detailed pictures offer compelling meditations on what is communicated via surfaces and what remains concealed behind them—celebrating the expressiveness of environments filled with ornate patterns and rich colors, while capturing instances where visual excess crosses over into camouflage.
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We hope to see all members of the public again very soon—please stay tuned for updates on our opening status.
📸 Farah Al Qasimi, Living Room V**e, 2017. Archival inkjet print. 26 1/4 x 35 in. Grey Art Gallery, NYU Art Collection. Gift of Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi on behalf of Barjeel Art Foundation, 2018.1. Courtesy The Third Line, Dubai, UAE
Happy from the Grey Art Gallery at ! This sunny work by Eren Eyüboglu (Born 1907, Romania – Died 1988, Istanbul, Turkey) is on our minds today as we gear up for springtime.
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Eyüboglu produced mosaics for public buildings from the 1950s to the 1970s. She composed this image of the sun and moon in 1965 for the former School of Dentistry building at Hacettepe University in Ankara.
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This work was featured in our exhibition "Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby W**d Grey Collection"—which will travel to the Rollins Museum of Art at Rollins College this fall.
We can't wait to read the new book from NYU Press, "Are the Arts Essential?"—it's the culmination of a multi-year project in which the NYU Brademas Center gathered artists, scholars, cultural critics, and journalists to address the title question. Across 25 essays, the contributors share their own ideas, experiences, and ambitions for the arts, reminding readers that the arts are everywhere and, in one important way after another, they question, charge and change us.
Topics include how artists and cultural institutions helped New York overcome the economic crisis of the 1970s; the vibrancy and diversity of Muslim culture in America during a time of rising Islamophobia; the strengthening of the common good through the art and cultural heritages of indigenous communities; digital data aggregation informing and influencing new art forms; and more.
https://www.nyu.edu/community/government-affairs/study-of-congress/research-and-initiatives/are-the-arts-essential-.html
We at the Grey are heartbroken by the loss of our friend Julie Saul Julie Saul Projects, an entrepreneurial Manhattan gallerist and The Institute of Fine Arts, NYU alum who championed many photographers and multimedia artists. Saul passed away on February 4, 2022, from leukemia. Read The New York Times obituary:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/12/arts/julie-saul-dead.html
At the time of her death, she was working on a project she had begun nearly two decades years earlier to promote the life and legacy of Berthe Weill, a pioneering, early-20th-century Parisian art dealer who has been largely written out of art history. Saul was determined to get Ms. Weill’s memoir in print. Her dream will come to fruition this summer when “Pow! Right in the Eye! Thirty Years Behind the Scenes of Modern French Painting” is released by University of Chicago Press:
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo150671397.html
It will be followed by an exhibition about Weill at the Musee Des Beaux Arts-Montreal Museum Of Fine Arts in the summer of 2024 and at the Grey the next year.
Lynn Gumpert, director of the Grey and a colleague of Saul, notes: “As all who knew her can attest, Julie was a truly irrepressible and effervescent force in the art world —she possessed a discerning eye and loved art history. She was also a longtime friend of Tom Sokolowski, my predecessor at the Grey Art Gallery. I owe a great debt of gratitude to Julie for introducing me to Berthe Weill, and like Julie, I became totally fascinated and transfixed by the saga of this remarkable woman who was the very first dealer to promote emerging artists. Julie lived life to the fullest and she’ll be dearly missed.”
Congratulations to New York University alum—and former Grey intern—Maria Nicanor on her new position as director of Cooper Hewitt! 👏
Today's is Trimurti (1971) by Francis Newton (F.N.) Souza.
Never one to shy away from religious iconography, Souza used his work to comment on the dynamic influence of religion in his life. "Trimurti"—the word refers to a Hindu cosmological concept in which the gods of creation (Brahma), preservation (Vishnu), and destruction (Shiva) are joined as a single cosmic force—is one of Souza’s “head paintings,” in which he used strong contrasts and solid outlines to depict faces. Here, three heads fan out from the neck, an arrangement often seen in temple sculpture, with each head framed by a different color. The three heads appear to be in motion, an illusion achieved through the boisterous application of splotches of contrasting colors. White lines break through these color fields, creating pulsating rhythms.
Explore more work by Indian, Iranian, and Turkish artists in our collection:
https://greyartgallery.nyu.edu/collections/
Image: F.N Souza (1924–2002). Trimurti, 1971. Oil on canvasboard, 30 × 24 in. Grey Art Gallery, New York University Art Collection, Gift of Abby W**d Grey, G1975.216
Wishing everyone a festive and safe Halloween. Here's a spooky window display, courtesy of talented NYU Tisch School of the Arts students, for those in the neighborhood this weekend...
![On Wednesday, September 28, at 5:30 pm, join Lynn Gumpert (Director, Grey Art Gallery]) and Michèle Wong (Associate Dire...](https://img5.gluseum.com/512/594/503386385125947.jpg)
