GCC Interview Questions
I am a senior at NYUAD, working on my capstone (or thesis) project. I study Art History with a focus on contemporary art, and I am working on curating an exhibition. I am currently in the research and organizational phase of this curatorial project- researching contemporary artists who fit into the art historical narrative of institutional critique and how they are a continuation of this narrative.
[I am using the definition of institutional critique as: “artistic practice that reflects critically on its own place within galleries and museums and on the concept and social function of art itself.”[1]
I’m investigating what contemporary artists are asking through this genre that is specific to this period of time, the implications of their critiques, and how they are engaging with institutional critique. I see the work of the GCC Collective as a form of institutional critique- by critiquing elements of a culture (rituals, practices within a culture), you are implicitly critiquing a kind of institution- and because culture and the art world and inextricably linked, this work fits into the category of institutional critique.
What are your thoughts on the reading of this work as cultural and/or institutional critique?
What do you feel is the role of artwork that is critical both within the art world as well as beyond it?
Is there a goal of inciting change in the systems you are critiquing through your work?
Have you come across any censorship to your work within the Gulf?
At the talk in Sharjah, we barely got to touch on gender and your treatment of gender in your work. For example when you had the sheikh portraits made for the lobby piece at the New Museum show, why did you include this element of drag? You use drag in other works as well, and I suspect it is for much more than the initial humor it brings to the work- how do audiences in the Gulf react to this element?
Thinking about the ‘CO-OP’ film you showed, would you say that the ‘found’ language you use in the work fits the context of art institutions projects in the region as well?
Would you agree that by exposing and critiquing ironies in Gulf culture, your work is also addressing the particularities of the art world and its own kind of language in this region?
Even though you refuse the label of ‘satire’ on your work, you very carefully use humor as a tool to expose elements of your surroundings (architecture, rituals, populist taste) in an almost ‘Brechtian’ manner- how do you balance humor so that it does not become the only meaning of a work, and the viewer can see its critical side?
By showing your work in museums and galleries (especially in the region), what is your art saying about the art world it is circulating within / how do your works comment on the very institutions they are being exhibited in, for example here in Sharjah?
What are your plans after Sharjah? Are you still working in the same series, or will you be beginning a new one?
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