The Creative Act: Performance, Process, Presence

Guggenheim Abu Dhabi presents the exhibition “The Creative Act: Performance, Process, Presence”, curated by Valerie Hillings, Sasha Kalter Wasserman, Sarah Dwider and Maisa Al Qassimi. The show investigates defining aspects of contemporary art, by gathering together artists of different nationalities and generations dealing with three core themes in their practice: “Performance”, through works by artists such as Rasheed Araeen and Mohammed Kazem, “Process” highlighting the artistic act of creation, and human “Presence”, revealed by the appearance, bodily or in the form of traces, of the artist or others in the works.

In the occasion of “The Creative Act: Performance, Process, Presence”, the artists Hesam Rahmanian, Ramin Haerizadeh, and Rokni Haerizadeh, in collaboration with other contributors, created an installation inspired by the main concepts of the exhibition: a multi-room installation, resulting by the sum of different mediums, that features site-specific paintings, videos, and artworks by other artists, including Nargess Hashemi and Laleh Khorramian. Created taking as reference point the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi collection chronology of the 1960s to the present, “Another Happy Day” (2016–17) guides the viewer on a path made by artworks and acts, reflecting the nature of art and the representations of the world, highlighting the circular resurgence of the past in the present through works of artists as Samuel Beckett, Bertolt Brecht and John Cage, or the low-cost objects produced by Fluxus between 1960s and 1970s.