10/3/18 - 3/24/19

Diana Al-Hadid

In her first major public art project, Diana Al-Hadid (American, b. Aleppo, Syria 1981) combines aluminum, steel, fiberglass, concrete, polymer modified gypsum, and pigment in four sculptures installed across the Williams campus. Al-Hadid is best known for creating ghostly white sculptures that pivot among architectural ruin, figuration, and abstraction. Delirious Matter conjures architecture that evokes archaeological remains, human figures that seep into cascading form, and expanses that hover between interior and exterior. The sculptures are located accross the Williams College campus, in front of Berkshire Quad, Hopkins Hall, and the Sawyer Library Quad.

Diana Al-Hadid: Delirious Matter was commissioned by the Madison Square Park Conservancy, New York, and was first exhibited by Mad. Sq. Art, the contemporary art program of the Madison Square Park Conservancy. The installation at Williams College is made possible by a generous contribution from Seton Melvin ’82 and the Williams College Public Art Fund, established by the Class of 1961.

Diana Al-Hadid, Delirious Matter, 2018. Collection of the artist, courtesy Marianne Boesky Gallery. © Diana Al-Hadid. The exhibition was organized by Madison Park Conservancy, New York.

Delirious Matter is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Substantial exhibition support for Delirious Matter is provided by Marianne Boesky Gallery, Stacey Goergen, and Showman Fabricators.

Major support for Mad. Sq. Art is provided by Charina Endowment Fund, Toby Devan Lewis, Pentagram Design, Ronald A. Pizzuti, Sorgente Group of America, Thornton Tomasetti, Tiffany & Co., and Anonymous. Substantial support is provided by George W. Ahl III, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Irving Harris Foundation, The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation, Lenore G. Tawney Foundation, The New York EDITION, Mad. Sq. Art Council, Danny and Audrey Meyer, The Rudin Family, The Sol LeWitt Fund for Artist Work, and Fern and Lenard Tessler. Ace Hotel New York is the Official Hotel Partner of Madison Square Park Conservancy.

Mad. Sq. Art is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. Mad. Sq. Art is supported in part with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. Madison Square Park Conservancy is a public/private partnership with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation.

Diana Al-Hadid

Diana Al-Hadid was born in Aleppo, Syria in 1981 and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

She received a BFA in Sculpture and a BA in Art History from Kent State University in 2003, and an MFA in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond in 2005. She also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2007. She has been the recipient of a Joan Mitchell Grant, a Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant, a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant, and a Pollock-Krasner Grant. She is also a United States Artists Rockefeller Fellow. Al-Hadid has had solo exhibitions at the David Winton Bell Gallery at Brown University, Providence, RI, NYU Abu Dhabi University Gallery, Abu Dhabi, UAE, The Vienna Secession in Vienna, Austria, the Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, OH, the Akron Museum of Art, Akron, OH, the Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA, the Weatherspoon Museum of Art, Greensboro, NC the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, TX, the Centro de Arte Contemporánea, La Conservera, Murcia, Spain, the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV, and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA. Her work is included in collections such as the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, and the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC. She is represented in New York by Marianne Boesky Gallery.

Installation views