Samia Halaby at MSU Highlights Her 70 Year Career
Left: Samia Halaby. Photo courtesy of Shanti Knight. Right: Samia Halaby, "I Found Myself Growing in an Old Olive Tree," 2005. Courtesy of the artist, New York. Photo and copyright: Samia Halaby, New York.
Following the abrupt cancellation of her previous exhibition, Samia Halaby’s eagerly awaited Eye Witness has opened at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University (MSU). This exhibition, two years in the making, is a monumental retrospective of Halaby’s 70-year career. It provides a revelatory survey of her experiences across both Western and Arab worlds. Halaby, celebrated for her fusion of Eastern and Western styles, brilliantly employs digital works, paintings, sculptures, and drawings. Her signature style marries the geometric abstract patterns found in Islamic architecture to the abstract painting techniques of the West. She also draws inspiration from the natural world, notably the treasured olive trees of Palestine.
Curator Rachel Winter highlights that Eye Witness underscores Halaby’s ability to imbue her abstractions with layered meanings. Halaby, who immigrated from Palestine to the United States at 14, graduated from MSU in 1960 and broke barriers as the first woman to become an associate professor in art at Yale University. The exhibition not only illuminates her personal narrative through art but also cements her status as a globally recognized artist with works housed in museums worldwide.
The exhibition is generously supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Eli and Edythe Broad Endowed Exhibitions Fund, Kathleen D. and Milton E. Muelder Endowment for Kresge Art Museum, and the MSU Humanities and Arts Research Program. Eye Witness runs from June 9 to December 15 this year.
