Fez — Moroccan artist Youness Atbane is taking “Untitled 14km” to the United Arab Emirates, where the multidisciplinary work will receive its UAE premiere at NYU Abu Dhabi on October 1 and 2.
The NYU Abu Dhabi Arts Center describes the production as a combination of dance theater, performance, and installation examining the contemporary art world’s engagement with Arab identity.
Performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on both evenings.
Rather than presenting identity as something fixed, “Untitled 14km” builds an imaginary museum devoted to contemporary art from North Africa and the Middle East.
An Arab-Andalusian poet, museum director, curator, and contemporary artist attempt to build an exhibition from within that fictional institution, reconsidering modernism through Arab-Andalusian poetry and contemporary Arab artistic practices.
Their conversations gradually expose tensions around legitimacy, authority, representation, and who gets to define what qualifies as “contemporary Arab identity.”
A Moroccan voice questioning the art system
Born in Safi in 1982, Atbane works across performance, visual art, choreography, and installation.
According to his NYU Abu Dhabi biography, he studied graphic art and design in Casablanca before earning a master’s degree in choreography from the National Choreographic Centre of Montpellier in 2008.
He later completed a master’s degree in art and museology at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis in France.
His work frequently examines communication, interpretation, institutions, and the gap between how reality is experienced and how it is represented.
Atbane currently works between Casablanca and Berlin and has presented work at institutions including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, and the Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rabat.
An imagined museum with real questions
“Untitled 14km” uses satire rather than a straightforward lecture on identity.
The imaginary exhibition allows Atbane to examine how museums, curators, artists, and cultural institutions participate in constructing categories such as “Arab art.”
NYU Abu Dhabi says the work focuses particularly on the negotiations and power dynamics that shape definitions of Arab identity within the international art system.
The production features Atbane alongside Mouad Aissi, Zouheir Atbane, Kamal Adissa, and Victoire Jacquet, with singing by Aziz Nadif and sound creation by Zouheir Atbane.
The work was co-produced by Studio Emad Eddin Stiftelsen and Arab Arts Focus, with support from several cultural organizations, including Morocco-based initiatives.
For Atbane, the Abu Dhabi performances place a distinctly Moroccan artistic perspective inside a wider regional conversation about who represents Arab culture, who interprets it, and how those representations travel through global institutions.
