The NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) Art Gallery reopens to the public tomorrow, Monday, November 15, with Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby Weed Grey Collection. This is the first physical exhibition in the Gallery since it moved to virtual programming in Spring of 2020, and will run through to February 5, 2022. 

Abby Weed Grey was a North American collector who made multiple trips to Iran, Turkey, and India in the 1960s and early 1970s, to collect modern art. The resulting collection is housed at New York University’s Grey Art Gallery. 

The exhibition features iconic works by some of the best-known artists from these countries, including Parviz Tanavoli, Fahrelnissa Zeid, and M.F. Husain. Presented  alongside Grey’s letters, journals, photographs, and artefacts, the exhibition reveals an unusual collector and demonstrates how these artists drew on their specific heritages while also engaging in global discourses around key issues of modernity. In doing so, the scholars and curators who developed this exhibition have expanded  the canons of modern art, beyond the well-studied areas of North America and Europe.

“We are delighted to finally re-open our doors to in-person visits, and at such an opportune time on Saadiyat Island: during Abu Dhabi Art and alongside new exhibitions at Louvre Abu Dhabi. I have been inspired by the story of Grey’s collection -- one often thinks of collecting in terms of its financial aspect, but this exhibition crystallizes, for me, the role a collector can play in the preservation and study of art, in the eventual writing of art history. Her collection has given scholars and audiences unprecedented access to a rare density of work from this period and these countries.”