Why Does Art Matter? Two Experts Weigh In…

Maya Allison, Executive Director of The Art Gallery and Chief Curator at NYU Abu Dhabi and Bill Bragin, Executive Artistic Director at The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi on the role of creativity in private and public life

To answer the question of why art matters, let us first go back to the beginning. Studies of toddlers show that learning to crawl on a carpet patterned with geometric designs aids brain development. Progressing into education, learning to paint, dance, or play an instrument, fires the left and right sides of the brain, which aids complex, lateral thinking. 

Of course, the arts are ultimately about as many things as humanity is about – self-expression, beauty, joy, and pain. Even in areas we might view as merely “entertainment” there are many additional benefits for society. The performing arts are often collaborative, teaching individuals to work in a group, with valuable lessons for office and team dynamics, moving ideas forward, and modelling different forms of leadership. 

Arts provide a framework to process the world and open conversations, create empathy, and prime people’s emotions for change. Art offers a different way to see the world, and, through what cultural studies professor Chris Ingraham describes in his book Gestures of Concern, art can create the environment for positive change in the public sphere. Art – even abstract, apparently non-political art – is characterised by its ability to shift one’s perception, just enough to even slightly open one’s mind or heart. Change cannot happen without that.

The Economic Argument

In addition to these notions of self-development and striving for a better society, art is also necessary for economic growth. Maya Allison, the founding Executive Director of The Art Gallery and Chief Curator at NYU Abu Dhabi, asserts, “I do believe, and this is a big part of why I am here, that the UAE and Abu Dhabi in particular, see the value of culture in all its forms and education and that they see investing in that as the future of a civilisation. So investing in art, culture and education will have a long-term benefit. It is a general national perspective on the value of these things. Ironically, in New York, they don’t necessarily value art that much.”

She concedes, “They value it financially as there is a very active art market – there are pockets of the art world that value art – but there is not a sense that the country or the city necessarily is particularly prioritising it as a concern or as a national goal or national drive.”

On the benefits for Abu Dhabi residents, Bill Bragin, Executive Artistic Director at The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi, observes, “The whole prospect of Saadiyat Island, ten years ago, did not exist. It was a desert island and now is one of the highest value real-estate markets in the country, because people want to live near cultural centres and all of the development which is happening around the museums.”

Bill points out, “When it comes to recruitment and retention of the best and brightest from all around the world in a place that the workforce can be really transient, the importance of cultural institutions is to create a quality of life that attracts people with their families and gives them things to hold on to so that they stay and contribute to its development. That is the longer-term economic impact that can really stabilise, and you are seeing with the visa policy – the rolling out of both the Golden Visa, but also the Creative Visa. It is something that the government is really recognising is an important dynamic that the next phase of growth for the UAE is going to be based on, inviting people to stay longer and really make it their home. Nothing makes a place feel like home more than feeling connected to it through the arts.”

The often talked-about Fourth Industrial Revolution is ushering in a period of rapid change: we don’t know what work will look like and job security is a major question. Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing and replacing jobs, and the increasing emphasis within education on STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) overlooks some key considerations.

For example, AI is already a key component of the future, and it will require imaginative people to program the algorithms, and highly perceptive, ethical people to guide its use. Nothing exists in a silo and we must ensure that creative, lateral thinking is always a part of the conversation for every facet of life – including education. Experiencing, making, and engaging with art all develop the creative, cognitive agility that is a prerequisite for the fast-changing nature of work in the years ahead. 

However, NYU Abu Dhabi is proud of its position of putting creativity before commerce to further the cultural conversation. “Like all things financial, scarcity and access makes things more valuable. I think there is some truth to that,” Maya admits. “That’s why there are strong ethical guidelines for non-commercial institutions like ours, to totally separate what we are doing from the commercial world. We don’t sell art. We only collect what we need to represent our collection in the campus. We are not acquiring in any way that would create a financial market. Our goal is to make possible exhibitions that maybe wouldn’t be commercially viable but that are really important for the conversation. This larger conversation is about creating a space for everyone who has a voice.”  

Art In The Community

As the UAE looks to the future development of its society and economy, it is no surprise that Dubai recently launched a Creative Economy Strategy, which aims to double the creative industries’ GDP contribution to five per cent of Dubai’s economy by 2025. 

That announcement also acknowledged the non-quantifiable importance of the arts to the UAE’s development. In a nation comprising people from many different places, art creates common reference points, shared histories, and a collective cultural memory.

The arts ecosystem in the UAE has never been more dynamic than it is today, with the arrival of Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Guggenheim set to open in 2025 and the Zayed National Museum coming soon. These powerhouses join an already thriving landscape which includes Sharjah Art Foundation and Museums, Jameel Arts Centre, and Alserkal Avenue, the Cultural Foundation in Abu Dhabi and the heritage museums in Al Ain.

This brings us to the role of universities in this process, which are at the heart of our communities. A neighbourhood, city, or region can be energised by a university community, including its staff, faculty, and students. The addition of a university’s public-facing cultural institutions further activates lively, nourishing dialogue across university and regional communities. 

Maya explains, “Everybody plays a different role, and we cannot do it without each other, so our role is to test the limits and push the limits, and experiment with the outer edges of curatorial practice and artistic innovation, investigation, experimentation. All of these works from emerging artists and students, all the way up to world-class artists that make a commercial gallery system and more of the major museums possible because we add a third wing to the dialogue.”

She elaborates, “If it is just commercial galleries and museums, there is nothing in between to get you thinking about how you go from arriving at a gallery, to that artwork some day being enshrined in a museum. So that process is the process of history being written in some cases but also the process of validation, development, scholarship, experimentation, to reach a point where the work is something that we want to think of as part of our human heritage.” 

Maya continues, “The role of a museum is often to frame stories of human heritage, whether it is contemporary or historical. Our role in many ways is like an engine among these other different systems. We help emerging artists get their first solo show at The Project Space but bring in established artists and the UAE’s avant-garde, and art history gets its story told in the main gallery. We make visible what is here, but we also activate new ways of engaging with art and then both of those spin out into growing the commercial gallery sector so that the artists that come through The Project Space, for example, then are at a stage where they could be taken on and start to be represented on the commercial gallery scene. The scholarship that comes out of the main gallery helps cement the reputations of those artists but also serves to raise questions about exhibition-making in the UAE. We try to make exhibitions that you are not going to see in other places to round out the offering.”

By virtue of the university’s mandate for intellectual and creative growth, these spaces foster an environment of experimentation, and a refuge for people to discover new things, to find their voices, or to join a community of like-minded souls. In this way, a university can sustain and support growth far beyond the walls of its own campus.

As NYU Abu Dhabi celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, we reflect on our own work to promote art and discussions around its meaning and value in the UAE and beyond. The UAE community has embraced The Arts Center’s motto of ‘Come Curious. Leave Inspired’, allowing us to develop a culture of discovery and open conversation. The Art Gallery brings global and regional artists and histories into dialogue, along with book publications that tell new stories of art and art history. 

This year also saw NYU Abu Dhabi start the UAE’s first Master of Fine Arts programme, leveraging Abu Dhabi’s location as a hub for the exchange across cultures through art, along with the opening of the Arab Center for the Study of Art, which places emphasis on using art to set the region’s own historical narrative, starting from the ground up. In addition to these endeavours, NYUAD is also pioneering a number of initiatives to foster the talent of tomorrow. The Galleries Department oversees The Christo and Jeanne-Claude Award for emerging artists of the UAE, and The Arts Center has just launched an artist development programme called Numoo, and a mentoring series of sessions called Off The Stage.

“Numoo which means growth in Arabic,” reveals Bill. “That idea of growth is really important. You plant a seed and then you don’t know exactly where it is going to grow. The idea was to give people multiple paths and multiple options, so the idea of growth and cultivation and the organic nature has been part of the way I have thought about our work.”  

The first intake includes poets, musicians, writers and theatre artists who, from autumn 2021 to summer 2022, will study a curriculum that covers aspects of artistic practice, including shaping and communicating one’s artistic vision; project management and handling budgets; understanding intellectual property and contracts; and working with technical production. 

“We really tried to put together a cohort that was diverse in its practice, diverse in its skill level, and we wanted to select people whose artistic practice was already developed in an interesting way but did not have the opportunities working within the UAE to necessarily develop the other skills that would then allow them to both build a sustainable career at home and bring that abroad.” 

He continues, “We are bringing the artists who are part of our season in as guest instructors, and we are really leading the way. The people that we looked for were coming from different communities and different subcultures, so the idea is that the learning they acquire for themselves will also benefit a community of artists who they represent behind them.”

Bill adds, “With the 50th anniversary of the country, we thought that if we picked ten people, then in five years we will have 50 artists that we have supported and cultivated. We ended up going with 13 so we might hit the 50 more quickly, but we are hoping that this is a pilot that will become ongoing.” 

In line with the UAE’s commitment to the International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development, Off The Stage, presented by Mubadala, coaches attendees on Developing Networks in the Arts, allowing artists and curators to build meaningful and authentic relationships while expanding their professional circles, and Social Practice in Art, where vocalist, songwriter, composer, and curator Meklit Hadero takes participants on a journey of self-discovery, and illustrates the impacts of the song and its power to change a community.

Together, these approaches contribute to the UAE being understood as a place of meaningful cultural production, not just somwhere importing artists. They plan to continue to invest in developing the local creative community, and help artists share the diverse voices and perspectives of the UAE on international stages.

The Big Question

Considering the above arguments, is it appropriate, then, to ask if art is a necessity rather than a luxury? NYU Abu Dhabi professor, ethnomusicologist, and guitarist Ghazi Faisal Al-Mulaifi, also leader of the band Boom.Diwan, has noted that music was a foundational means of survival in the Gulf. In days gone by, a song leader – the nahham – was an essential member of pearl-diving expeditions because music would call for protection, provide inspiration and motivation to the crew, and give what he describes as “medicine in the form of sound”.

Fast forward to the present, and the arts have been an essential part of how we have felt a sense of connection during the COVID-19 pandemic. Multiple studies have shown a positive correlation between art and mental health. Maya points out, “The pandemic reactivated the existential question that most of the artists I know have, ‘Does this matter at all? Why am I doing this?’ Especially when you close the galleries, you really have to rethink everything, and it refocused my understanding of its importance. When I do experience art or when I see people experiencing art, there is a fundamental healing and growth and good.”

She continues, “People don’t think of art as something that matters. It’s easy to think that medicine, science and education in an academic sense matter, but art matters in a way that is hard to articulate precisely because of the way that it matters. Art is way beyond everything. If you can say it or write it, then you wouldn’t need to make art about it. What art does is important for all of our wellbeing – to find a new way to see and feel seen. Ergo, it matters.”

This essential nature is captured by Bread and Puppet Theater’s Why Cheap Art? manifesto published in 1984, which includes this fundamental truth: ‘Art is food. You can’t eat it but it feeds you… It needs to be everywhere because it is the inside of the world’.  

 Words Maya Allison and Bill Bragin

Photography by  Philip Cheung, John Varghese, Waleed Shah,

Lead Image Courtesy of The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi. From Bazaar ARTBOOK, Issue 002