On Tuesday night at WhiteBox, artists used their work to sound a clarion call to political action.
Wafaa Bilal
Posted inArt
Help Rebuild the University of Baghdad’s Destroyed Art Library, One Book at a Time
In 2003, during the invasion of Iraq, looters set fire to the library of the College of Fine Arts at the University of Baghdad. Seventy thousand books were reduced to ashes.
Posted inArt
Wafaa Bilal’s War of Images
Wafaa Bilal asks us to bear witness, examine, and understand recent history. He places himself in his art to raise awareness and alter our perceptions.
Posted inArt
Unmanned Archival Vehicle: Wafaa Bilal at Driscoll Babcock
For whom do images of a conflict zone, as those Wafaa Bilal has recreated in his Ashes Series, bear witness? How is this memory constituted? In his first solo show at Driscoll Babcock, the artist and NYU professor takes as his starting point newswire photographs of destruction in Iraq, transforming them via scale reproductions into dioramas where bodies are traded for a volcanic scattering of human ashes.
Posted inArt
Landscape Acquired: A Dialogue with Scott Patrick Wiener
For those seeking an antidote to the Armory madness this weekend, Distant Images, Local Positions, curated by Wafaa Bilal at the Project Space of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, is an edifying alternative.
Posted inArt
How Violence Has Become Shielded by Virtual Distance
BERKELEY, California — On BlueServo, webcams are streaming live webcams stationed at potential border-crossing hotspots on the line between Texas and Mexico. Anyone in the world can go to BlueServo and guard the border virtually, 365 days a year and 24 hours a day. If a viewer was to spot suspicious activity they can report it to the local authorities, all without leaving the comfort of their keyboard. In my mind, BlueServo connected immediately to the work of NYU professor Wafaa Bilal.
Posted inOpinion
Thoughts on West Asian Performance Art
We’ve been catching up on our reading at Hyperallergic HQ and came across this quote by Wafaa Bilal in the Dubai-based Brownbook magazine (Issue 25) about the state of performance art in West Asia …
