Iftikhar Dadi is the John H. Burris Professor in the History of Art at Cornell University, and Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi is the founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation in the United Arab Emirates.

Their conversation explores the efflorescence of twentieth-century modernism in the Arab world in conjunction with the exhibition Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s–1980s, on view February 12-June 12, 2022, at the Johnson Museum.

Taking Shape, organized by the Grey Art Gallery at New York University, draws solely on artworks from the Barjeel Foundation’s groundbreaking collections of modern and contemporary Arab art. Dadi is a contributor to the accompanying exhibition catalogue.

At the Johnson, Taking Shape was coordinated by Ellen Avril, Chief Curator and the Judith H. Stoikov Curator of Asian Art, and supported by a generous gift endowed in memory of Elizabeth Miller Francis ’47.