Diana al-Hadid

Gregory Volk describes Al-Hadid's work in an articulate manner by saying, "They are imbued with potent, world-shaping forces, including regeneration and entropy, growth and decay."[2]

An incomplete list of her sculptures includes Tomorrow's Superstition (2008), Actor (2009), Trace of a Fictional Third (2011), At the Vanishing Point (2012), and Divided Line (2012).[2]

An incomplete list of her bronze sculptures includes In Mortal Repose (2011), Missed Mark (2010), Stage Fright (2010), and Graphite on Leak (2010).[2]

Al-Hadid makes sculptures from simple materials such as cardboard, expanded polystyrene, plaster, and wax;[1] some are built in parts so that they can be assembled and disassembled.[4] She often uses ornamentation in many of her sculptures, which is a tie to Middle Eastern cultures.[7] Al-Hadid ties her Syrian heritage in with many of her works, one in particular being, The Gradual Approach of My Disintegration.[5] In this work she pairs sandals with the Aleppo Citadel, which is a Muslim holy site, to create a work that showcases the culture of Syria visually and briefly.[9] Although many of her works have a tie and direct message linked to her Middle Eastern heritage, the materials she uses in her sculptures are a tie to her American upbringing.[5]

Al-Hadid's early work focused on creating contrast through scale.[12] She began incorporating partial figuration into her sculptures with works such as Actor (2009).[2] The sculpture In Mortal Repose (2011) is her first use of bronze.[2] Al-Hadid creates visually stimulating sculptures with a variety of materials. Her sculptures are meticulously created with eccentric patterns and melded parts. Her sculptures show a potential to fall at any moment but are truly quite stable.[7] Al-Hadid uses materials such as cardboard, plywood, plaster, and resin to create sculptures that appear to be breaking or even melting.[7] In her bronze sculptures, she manages to manipulate the material in a way that looks as if it is dripping.[2] Her sculptures, though not truly moving, have a sense of movement about them that causes the viewer to want to view her work at every possible angle.[2] Through her sculptures, she focuses on the relationship between a person’s mind as well as their physical being. Many of her sculptures allow the audience to walk among the different parts of the sculpture.[1]

Al-Hadid is successful at combining the use of human forms, architectural elements, and landscapes in a manner that allows them to bleed into one another, making it difficult for the viewer to decipher what is what.[2] Al-Hadid's works are primarily monochromatic and best known for their resemblance to ancient ruins and their unique drip structures.[2][12] Al-Hadid works with the concept of the pedestal, and her work has also evolved to the point where she intentionally uses and includes the pedestals that her pieces are displayed on as actual parts of the sculptures, and incorporating and redesigning this traditional gallery space structure into works such as At the Vanishing Point (2012).[2] Manipulation of gravity and the illusion of instability are also key concepts in her sculptures.[12][2]

Al-Hadid draws inspiration for her artworks from a multitude of varying sources, including, but not limited to, architecture, Syrian water clocks, black holes, the particle accelerator, and Italian Renaissance paintings, successfully taking the perspectives and viewpoints of two-dimensional works and transforming them into three-dimensional.[2] One of the specific architectural structures that Al-Hadid has drawn inspiration from includes the Chartes Cathedral.[13] Al-Hadid is intentional about the titles of her sculptures, naming them in ways that allude to her inspiration.[14]

Al-Hadid often draws inspiration for her human forms from the figures in art history, be she transforms them in ways so that they are not recognizable, and she often does away with the practice of making her forms idealized.[2] Certain works are directly connected to specific Italian Renaissance paintings, such as At the Vanishing Point (2012), which takes inspiration from a sixteenth-century fresco,[2] and her piece Divided Line (2012), which draws directly from Raphael's Christ's Charge to Peter (1515).[2] By utilizing her knowledge of both Western culture and non-Western culture, Al-Hadid is able to make visual connections in reference to the architectural styles of the Western and Islamic worlds.[14] She often alludes to the existence of different architectural elements including different styles of archways, flying buttresses, towers, and columns.[14]

Al-Hadid's works are poetic causing the viewers to stop and reflect on what it is she is trying to say through her work. It is hard to decipher whether her sculptures are being built up or torn down.[15] Her sculptures often pose the question of nature versus the man-made, and whether man is taking over nature, or if nature is taking over the man-made with the slow, but continuous destruction of man-made structures.[14]

All the Stops, 2007, wood, fiberglass, steel, plaster, cardboard, pigment

Al-Hadid also creates various drawings using similar sources of inspiration that she uses for her sculptures.[14] Not only are these drawings inspired by the same sources, they are also created in a similar manner as her sculptures as she creates them in a manner of "building up" the material but adding layers upon layers of material, often in vertical movements up and down the canvas, but these drawings are not preliminary sketches of her sculptures.[14][2] She often composes her drawings using conté, pastel, acrylic, and Xerox-transfer techniques, among other materials.[14] Unlike her sculptures, almost all of Al-Hadid's drawings are not given titles.[14]

In accordance with its title, Al-Hadid's sculpture embraces perspective effects originally used in two-dimensional artworks.[16] At the Vanishing Point specifically draws from Jacopo Pontormo's fresco The Visitation (1515),[2] re-imagining the architectural structures of the work in three dimensions, with significant alterations. Al-Hadid uses four pedestals as a part of the sculpture, one of several elements that lead the viewer's eye into the interior of the structure, where the vanishing point parallels are most effective.[2] The sculpture, like many of Al-Hadid's works, is primarily monochromatic but does contain traces of blues and of metallic silver (from aluminum foil).[2]

First displayed at the Vienna Secession in 2014 and later the central artwork of exhibitions at both The Art Gallery at New York University Abu Dhabi[16] and the David Winton Bell Gallery at Brown University,[17] Phantom Limb displays the phenomenon of phantom limb syndrome through the maimed torso at the top of the work and the detached leg resting on a pedestal below the figure.[16] The sculpture incorporates Al-Hadid's typical features of drips and manipulation of pedestals, while the separated statue brings additional meaning to the work.[18]

This piece, in particular, draws from Pieter Brueghel the Elder's painting Tower of Babel (1563). This piece takes an architectural structure and takes it apart placing the broken pieces onto areas that they would not normally appear.[2] These sculptures melt and break apart recognizable imagery into an aesthetic creation that energizes the space it is in.

• 2017: Falcon's Fortress, Marianne Boesky Gallery, September 16 - October 21, 2017.[17][20]
• 2016: Diana Al-Hadid: Phantom Limb, The Art Gallery at New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, March 6 - May 28, 2016.[17]
• 2015: Ground and Figures, Ohwow Gallery, Los Angeles, April 8 - May 16, 2015.[17]
• 2014: Diana Al-Hadid: The Fates, Secession, Vienna, Austria, September 11 - November 22, 2014.[17]
• 2013: Diana Al-Hadid, Weatherspoon Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, February 9 - May 13, 2013.[2][17]
• 2012: The Vanishing Point, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, September 14 - October 20, 2012.[2][17][21]
• 2011: Diana Al-Hadid: Water Thief, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, September 3, 2011 - January 29, 2012.[2][17]
• 2010: Hammer Projects: Water Thief, Los Angeles, CA. Hammer Museum, May 15 – August 15.[22]
• 2008: Reverse Collider, New York, NY. Perry Rubenstein Gallery, September 4 – October 9.[22]
• 2007: Record of a Mortal Universe, New York, NY. Perry Rubenstein Gallery, October 19 – November 21.[22]

• 2018: Arsenal Contemporary, Eye to Eye: An Exhibition Benefiting Sanctuary for Families, New York, NY, January 25 – February 25, 2018.[23][2]
• 2017: Post-Election, Hudson, NY. September Gallery, co-curated by Kristen Dodge and Kate Gilmore, January 28 – March 5.[23][2]
• 2016: Culture City of East Asia 2016, Diana Al-Hadid: The Unicorn Escapes, Nara, Japan. Toshodaiji Temple, September 3 – October 23.[23][2]
• 2015: In and Out of Time, Mumbai, India. Galerie Isa, curated by Jane Neal, December 9 – February 3, 2016.[23][2]
• 2014: #IN.TER.FER.EN.CE, Dubai, UAE. The Farjam Foundation, September 14 – December 31.[23][2]
• 2013: 10 under 40, Istanbul, Turkey. Istanbul ’74, curated by Isabella Icoz, October 31 – January 4.[23][2]
• 2012: Jack Helgesen Family Collection: ARCIHTECTONS, Tønsberg, Norway. Haugar Art Museum, May 16 – September 30.[23][2]
• 2011: Printed Histories: 15 years of Exit Art portfolios 1995 – 2011, New York, NY. Exit Art, December 16 – January 31, 2012.[23][2]
• 2010: IT AIN’T FAIR 2010, Miami, FL. OHWOW, Art Basel Miami Beach, exhibition design by Rafael de Cárdenas, December 2 – December 5.[23][2]
• 2009: Disorientation II, Abu Dhabi, UAE. Minaret Al Saadiyat, Saadiyat Island, curated by Jack Persekian, November 21 – February 20.[23][2]
• 2008: The Station 2008, Miami, FL. Midblock East, curated by Shamim M. Momin and Nate Lowman, December 3 – December 7.[23][2]
• 2007: Blood Meridian, Berlin, Germany. Galerie Michael Janssen, curated by David Hunt, Galerie Michael Janssen, April 27 – May 26.[23][2]
• 2006: AIM 26, Bronx, NY. Bronx Museum, co-curated by Lydia Yee and Erin Salazar, March 23 – July 2.[23][2]

• DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park[24]
• Judith Rothschild Foundation, New York[2]
• Whitney Museum of American Art[25]
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston[26]
• Weatherspoon Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro[2]
• The C-Collection, Vaduz, Principality of Liechtenstein.[27]
• San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, TX[15]
• The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH[2]
• Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA[2]
• Saatchi Collection, London, United Kingdom[2]