Adifa Khadan, the well-respected, under-appreciated senior provost of Madrid's famed Instituto de las Artes Plásticas is mostly known for her dry wit and impeccable organizational skills. It's been said that on any given day, Khadan knows precisely how many paper clips and ball point pens are on the desk of her less than fully trusted office manager. She has a photographic memory, perfect musical pitch and is fluent in seven or eight languages including Ladino and Sanskrit. She has single-handedly transformed the Art Institute from a bastion of pre-Republican agitprop kitsch to one of Europe's hotbeds of avant garde, cutting-edge. post-modern conceptualism.
 | ||
| Adifa Khadan 2013 |
So successful as a college administrator, it is often forgotten that Khadan is a prolific and widely collected painter of note. Her recent series of large scale pastels, "Moses Crosses the Nile" was exhibited at Pagis/parish in New York and though it was greeted by the critics with mixed reviews, the public was unanimous in its indifference.
By contrast, an earlier series of works. "Myopic Prophets," a large scale suite of works-on-paper based on the litergical music of the south Saharan Berbers is still considered the most lucid, graphic argument in support of Edward Said's thesis of Orientalism.
My good friend David Schoffman in his new role as international art world impresario has recently curated a show of Khadan's work from the early eighties when she was still very much under the influence of Latin American artists like Micah Carpentier and Don Juan Al Azar.
This mixed-bag of uneven ditherings serves as further proof that artists should avoid university campuses the same way lions should stay clear of zoos. Either you stay in your studio or you teach.
You can't do both!
 |
| Adifa Khadan, 1986 |
 |
| Adifa Khadan, 1986 |
 |
| Adifa Khadan, 1985 |
No comments:
Post a Comment