The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University is hosting the show Modernisms, first on display at the Grey Art Gallery, New York University’s museum,which houses an unparalleled collection of modern Asian and Middle Eastern art. Modernisms brings together its distinct collection of paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings from the 1960s and early ’70s from Iran, Turkey and India for the first time. At a time when few Americans were attuned to contemporary art from the Middle East and Asia, collector Abby Weed Grey purposefully collected artworks from non-Western countries and eventually established the Abby Grey Foundation for this purpose.
Modernisms sheds new light on how artists drew inspiration from their respective heritages while also engaging in global discourses around key issues of modernity.