An upcoming exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Center will feature commissioned artwork from eight international artists celebrating the 20th anniversary of the museum’s building designed by Zaha Hadid.
A Permanent Nostalgia for Departure: A Rehearsal on Legacy with Zaha Hadid opens Sept. 22. It is a group exhibition in which artists were asked to create an original work that responds to Hadid’s work and the architectural brilliance of the CAC itself.
Hadid was the first woman to design an American museum – the CAC – and it was her first complete building in the U.S. She was a world-renowned architect, known for her Deconstructivist style and as “the Queen of the Curve,” according to CAC literature. She earned many admirable awards for her work and established Zaha Hadid Architects in 1979. Hadid died in 2016.
The CAC was founded in 1939 as the Modern Art Society; it became the Contemporary Arts Center in 1954 and found its current home in the Hadid-designed structure on Sixth and Walnut streets in 2003.
The 82,265-square-foot building isn’t just a shell for holding exquisite, contemporary art. Embodying the Deconstructivist style, the building defies symmetry and creates movement and wonder inside and out. A work of art in itself, the building’s features instill awe with grand angles and lack thereof as seen in the lobby’s “Urban Carpet.” The museum is welcoming by design; the “Urban Carpet” is an aspect Hadid implemented as a continuation of the sidewalk and the glass facade acts as a minimal barrier, attracting passersby to peek inside.
“Zaha Hadid’s iconic design of our building is a symbol of innovation and creativity, and it embodies our mission as an incubator for creative expression in the Cincinnati community and beyond,” said executive director of the CAC, Christina Vassallo, in a press release. “It only seems fitting to celebrate Hadid’s visionary work as an artist by asking a new generation of artists to reflect and respond to the impact she made throughout her life and how her ideas continue to live on and inspire us all.”
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A Permanent Nostalgia for Departure: A Rehearsal on Legacy with Zaha Hadid was guest curated by Maite Borjabad López-Pastor and is on view through Jan. 28, 2024.
According to a press release by the CAC, “The exhibition reflects upon the ideas of distance in time, history, cultural background, and landscapes and how a legacy can become a passageway for these ideas.”
Eight artists have created seven original works that exhibit a range of media, including sculpture, installation, textiles, sound, video and performance. The artists also represent multiple cultural backgrounds. According to the press release, the artists are: Rand Abdul Jabbar (b. Baghdad, 1990, currently lives and works in Abu Dhabi), Khyam Allami (b. Damascus, 1981, currently lives and works in Berlin), Emii Alrai (b. Blackpool, 1993, currently lives and works in Leeds), Hera Büyüktaşcıyan (b. Istanbul, 1984), Andrea Canepa (b. Lima, 1980, currently lives and works in Berlin), Dima Srouji (b. Nazareth, 1990, currently lives and works in London) and Hamed Bukhamseen (b. Kuwait City, 1991) and Ali Ismail Karimi (b. Manama, 1989) as founders of Civil Architecture Studio.
Büyüktaşcıyan presents a cascading piece made of carpet inspired by a childhood photograph of Hadid. The work will flow across the “Urban Carpet” and allow viewers to rethink the ground as an “accumulation of time and memory.” An installation that explores sound by Allami highlights the “sonic nature” of the CAC, generating sound from the numerous spatial elements of the building’s construction.
“Each of the new commissioned works by the contributing artists is an exercise to mobilize knowledge that departs from Zaha Hadid and evolves towards the unknown of the provocation,” Borjabad said in the release. “These works resist the idea of a retrospective or monographic traditional exhibition, and with it a monolithic narrative on the architect’s practice.”
The exhibit will also feature paintings and ephemera from Hadid. A Permanent Nostalgia for Departure: A Rehearsal on Legacy with Zaha Hadid opens Sept. 22 at the CAC. For more information visit contemporaryartscenter.org.
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This article appears in Aug 23 – Sep 5, 2023.
