The NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) Art Gallery has announced the rollout of its second digital archive: the ZIMOUN exhibition. Going live on June 9, ZIMOUN is the second in a series of launches inviting the public to reunite with curators and artists as part of TRACE: Archives and Reunions.
To mark each launch, The NYUAD Art Gallery will host a reunion with the artist. For this reunion, Swiss artist Zimoun will premiere a new work composed specifically for the Gallery’s online audience: a sound performance, to be experienced at home, with headphones, in the dark. Tracing: ZIMOUN will start at 6pm GST on Tuesday, June 9, and will be livestreamed on the Gallery’s Facebook page.
The exhibition’s digital archive, which will launch online that same evening, will feature a wide range of videos, photos, digital downloads of the publications such as the Youth Guide, as well as an excerpt from the first-ever book-length monograph on the artist, published by the Gallery and, edited by Executive Director of the NYUAD Art Gallery and the University’s Chief Curator Maya Allison.
The exhibition by Zimoun opened in February 2019, with two major milestones. First, it marked the first time the artist exhibited his work in the Gulf (including a major new commission). Second, The NYUAD Art Gallery published the first-ever full-length book on the artist, widely anticipated, given his international profile (the coming year alone will see exhibitions at London’s Hayward Gallery, Korea’s MoCA, and Spain’s Reina Sofia). The digital archive is an opportunity to explore Zimoun’s work and practice as it was presented by The NYUAD Art Gallery.
Allison reflects: “In reuniting with artists and curators, I consider how to bring a virtual audience into the kind of intimate immediacy that one gets when visiting art, or a good friend. I was delighted when Zimoun accepted my suggestion to create a new work specifically for our event: a performance to be experienced over the internet. Zimoun’s performances are often conducted in total darkness, to enable the listener to become fully immersed in the sound. This will be no different: the audience will put their best headphones on, and be asked to close their eyes (turn off the lights, put on a blindfold, as you wish), and experience the sound composition as directly as possible — as a community, with the artist.”
Audiences can listen to Zimoun’s past audio compositions here: zimoun.net/audio/
The NYUAD Art Gallery’s TRACE: Archives and Reunions, is a series of ten digital events and reunions enabling audiences to explore past exhibitions over the course of the summer and into the early fall. The season will culminate in the publication of a six-year anniversary book, a retrospective of The Art Gallery’s journey since its 2014 inception.
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