Overview

From pre-historic cave art to the digital media of today, human beings across the globe and through the ages have used visual forms to understand and shape their world. Painting, sculpture, and architecture as well as ornament, design, printmaking and photography have provided rich traditions of visual expression and communication, and the development of new media has greatly expanded this visual repertoire. Different cultures, in different places and at different times, have valued and conceptualized vision and made use of the visual arts in a variety of ways. The visual arts investigate and re-imagine the physical, social, cultural, and spiritual spheres of human existence and offer arguments about and interpretations of these realms. The Art & Art History major at NYU Abu Dhabi invites students to explore the objects, practices, meanings, and institutions that constitute the visual arts in diverse cultures, from comparative, historical, and cross-disciplinary perspectives.