The Cultural Diplomacy Department of the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in Washington, DC has scheduled a new online cultural discussion with experts from the USA and the UAE.
Moderated by Suzy Sikorski, Founder of Mid East Art, along with panelists Antonia Carver, Director, Art Jameel; Lynn Gumpert, Director, Grey Art Gallery, NYU; Hala Khayat, Director & Head of Sale, Christie’s, Dubai; Clare Davies, Assistant Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art Middle East, North Africa and Turkey, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This distinguished panel will explore how the relationship between United States and United Arab Emirates-based institutions have shaped the regional art scene in the last decade.
The discussion will highlight how these partnerships created an influential ecosystem of arts experts in education, museums, the art market and philanthropy.
Wednesday 24 June, 2020 at 12pm EDT (8pm UAE)
Click here to register
Clare Davies, Assistant Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art, Middle East, North Africa and Turkey – Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Clare Davies joined the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2015 as the museum’s first curator of Modern and Contemporary Art to focus on the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey. In the intervening years, she has built up the museum’s holdings of modern works from the region and organised three special exhibitions. Davies received a Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University and was awarded the inaugural Irmgard Coninx Prize Fellowship at the Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin (2014-2015) for postdoctoral research on the relationship between efforts to decolonise art in the Arab world and the Third World Liberation Movement.
Hala Khayat, Director, Head of Sale, Middle Eastern Modern & Contemporary Art — Christie’s, Dubai. Hala Khayat has played a significant role in the expansion and internationalisation of the art market in the Middle East, having been integral in developing Christie’s Dubai since its inception in 2007. Along with lecturing on Arab art history and the market throughout the region since 2010, she has co-curated at Christie’s a number of events. She has since a few years been compiling two monographs for celebrated Syrian artists Louay Kayyali (1934-1978) and Fateh Moudarres (1922-1999). Studying Visual Communications at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Damascus, she then obtained her Master’s degree in Design Studies from Central Saint Martin’s in London. In 2015 she was named one of the 100 most influential Arabs under forty by Arabian Business.
Lynn Gumpert, Director of the Grey Art Gallery, New York University. Lynn Gumpert has been Director of the Grey Art Gallery, New York University’s fine arts museum, since 1997. She previously worked as a writer, consultant, and independent curator, organising shows in New York, Japan, and France. From 1980 to 1988 she was curator and senior curator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. In June 1999 Ms. Gumpert was honored by the French government with the distinction of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters.
Antonia Carver, Director of Art Jameel. Antonia Carver oversees Art Jameel’s work across heritage, education and the arts, and the management of two institutions — Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai, and Hayy: Creative Hub, Jeddah. Antonia was previously Director of Art Dubai (2010-2016). Based in the UAE since 2001, she was part of the founding team of Dubai International Film Festival (2004-2011) and in 2004, joined Bidoun. Prior to moving to the UAE, Antonia was based in London, where she served a number of roles, including as an editor at Phaidon Press; in development and projects at the Institute of International Visual Arts (Iniva); and in publishing at G+B Arts International. She graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a Master’s in Social Anthropology in 1994.
Suzy Sikorski, Founder, Mid East Art. Suzy Sikorski is an art researcher currently specializing in modern art history of the Arabian Gulf region. In 2016 she founded Mid East Art, a digital art platform that acts as both an art historical archive and online periodical featuring a comprehensive coverage of interviews and exhibition reviews in film and texts of artists from the Middle East. She received a Fulbright Scholarship to the United Arab Emirates in 2016-2017 and is currently a Junior Specialist at Christie’s in Dubai for their Middle Eastern Modern & Contemporary art department. She received her Bachelor’s Degree at Fordham University in New York in Middle East Studies and completed her thesis on UAE Art History since the 1970s. Her interviews and reviews are also featured in Canvas, ArtAsiaPacific, The National, Tribe and Harper’s Bazaar Art Arabia.
