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The Life and Legacy of Nabil Kanso

 

Wednesday, May 29th, 6:00pm
22 Christopher Street, New York, NY 10014

The Institute of Arab & Islamic Art (IAIA) invites you to join us in a discussion with art historian and curator Rachael Winter and Mohammed Al-Thani, Director and Curator of IAIA, moderated by Audrée Anid, Director of Special Projects at James Cohan Gallery.

The event—held in conjunction with Endless Night, Nabil Kanso's first institutional solo exhibition in New York—will feature an introduction to Kanso's life, tracing his journey across Lebanon and the Americas. The discussion will draw on Kanso's artistic practice and his style in parallel to his contemporaries in America and across the globe.

Identity and politics have often marginalised artists from the Arab and Islamic region. How has the wave of rediscoveries helped reevaluate their position as part of a larger global conversation? How does Kanso’s identity as an artist of Lebanese origin intersect with his practice as an artist who spent most of his life living and working in the Americas?

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Seating is limited, please RSVP to info@instituteaia.org by Tuesday, May 28th, 2024 if you would like to attend.

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Speakers Bio:

 

Rachel Winter is the Assistant Curator at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, and an art historian of modern and contemporary West Asia and North Africa. Winter recently curated the major exhibition Blind Spot: Stephanie Syjuco-and Kayla Mattes: DOOMSCROLLING, the artist’s first solo museum exhibition. She is the co-editor of Samia Halaby: Centers of Energy with Elliot Josephine Leila Reichert, and recently awarded Outstanding Monograph by the Midwest Art History Society. Winter is curating the exhibition Samia Halaby: Eye Witness, which opens this summer at the MSU Broad Art Museum, and will be the Palestinian painter’s first American museum retrospective. Her curatorial projects in 2025 include the first American museum survey for Nabil Kanso, and a major exhibition featuring Diana al-Hadid.

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Mohammed Rashid Al-Thani is the Curator and Director of the Institute of Arab and Islamic Art in New York. In 2016, Mohammed founded IAIA, the only nonprofit center in the United States dedicated to contemporary art from the Arab and Islamic Worlds. In the intervening years, he spearheaded the Institute’s program of modern and contemporary art, and curated a series of critically acclaimed exhibitions including Huguette Caland 2018, Rummana Hussain The Tomb of Begum Hazrat Mahal 2022, Behjat Sadr 2023 and Nabil Kanso Endless Night 2024. He also served as a curatorial advisor to Qatar Museums, curating Huguette Calands largest retrospective to date, Faces and Places which opened at Mathaf in 2020.

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Audrée Anid is an artist, curator, and writer. Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan,She holds a BA from Wesleyan University, CT and an MA from Teachers College, Columbia University, NY. Her visual art practice spans photography, painting, and printmaking; often exploring fragmentation, memory, femininity, and loss. She has exhibited at BRIC and NARS Foundation and internationally in Beirut. Her work is held in the permanent collection of Teachers College. She has spent over a decade working in the arts sector and is currently the Director of Special Projects at James Cohan. While at the gallery, she curated the group exhibition Borders in 2019 and A Través in 2022.