“Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s-1980s” will be on display at Northwestern University’s Block Museum of Art from September 22 through December 4, 2022. The exhibition showcases works from the renowned Barjeel Art Foundation collection of mid-20th century abstract art from North Africa, West Asia, and the Arab diaspora. The Block Museum hosts the last stop of a journey that visits five American cities.
The 90 works in “Taking Shape”—paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints—reflect the variety of non-figurative artistic techniques that developed in the Arab world during a forty-year period and encourage the canonization of abstract art as well as a more globalized discussion of modernism.
The exhibition showcases numerous abstract trends that originated in the area and demonstrates how both lone artists and groups of artists struggled with concerns of cultural decolonization, authenticity, and identity.
According to Lisa Corrin, Ellen Philip Katz Executive Director, “‘Taking Shape’ is the next chapter in The Block’s examination of global modernisms, and the exhibition resonates with the museum’s goal to focus on understudied, ignored, and even suppressed art history.
