The art world, like the world in general, is in a state of flux. Who is art for? What does art do? Whose art should be shown and how should it be made, exhibited, and sold? These kinds of questions resonate not only in the world’s big art capitals and across the internet but also in our local art scene.
Added to these wide-ranging general questions is this one: How can regional artists and exhibition spaces make a relevant contribution to this conversation? Faheem Haider is focused on these issues. Hired last November as the executive director of Unison, a New Paltz-based arts organization founded in 1976, he believes that Unison can leverage its resources to impact art in the region. Haider brings an impressive array of tools to this task: He is an artist, curator, critic, social activist, community organizer, educator, and fundraiser all in one.
How does this play out under Haider’s leadership at Unison? That he was born in Bangladesh in 1978 and immigrated with his family to our region when he was 12 is important to Haider but not definitive. Who he is cannot be defined based solely on his cultural heritage. And who he is as executive director is first and foremost a person who is moving quickly to build and expand upon Unison’s past by stabilizing the organization in the wake of COVID—he raised more money during his second month on the job than had ever been raised in a single month at Unison previously.
“I don’t think I should be the exemplary person just because Unison has hired someone who has a broad personal experience,” Haider says. “I don’t think that is what you want to rely on. You want to have an institution that can be used by anybody. You want to build an organization that anyone can plug and play.”
Living Legacy
Haider is choosing to exhibit artists whose work speaks to the commonalities of human experience rather than adhering to stylistic trends dictated by art-world market forces. Over the past year, Haider has highlighted the feminist abstractions of Beth Humphrey and Mimi Graminski, the conceptual cartoons of Sean Nixon conveying his responses to COVID, and the expression of ecological alternatives rooted in a reverence for nature realized by the 20-plus artists in “Owning Earth,” curated by Tal Beery, which is on view in Unison’s sculpture garden through the end of October. Haider and artist Ryan Cronin recently installed Cronin’s work The Box, an interactive public art installation that creates a safe space for women to gather information about sexual health and wellness.
“From my point of view as a founder and past executive director of Unison, Faheem is bringing a strong vision and passion for bringing new life and engaging new audiences for our now 46-year-old arts organization,” says Stuart Bigley. Matthew Friday, a SUNY New Paltz art professor and Unison board member adds, “Faheem carries on the legacy of Unison, which began as an intentional community interested in radical forms of living where aesthetics were understood to be something more than decoration and passive contemplation. Faheem’s background, which includes study at the London School of Economics and two terms as the vice chair for the Orange County Democrats, informs his unique approach to thinking of art as a driving force in the creation of a more just and interdependent community.”
Haider sees art as storytelling and storytelling itself as a powerful tool for inclusive community building. Take, for example, the recent exhibition of paintings and ceramics by Tibor Spitz, “A Retrospective: Stories, Remembrances,” which Haider curated. “Tibor is a 93-year-old working class artist. He uses basic materials purchased at local art supply stores,” Haider says. “He is essentially creating paintings that are devices to tell a story encapsulating memories of his own experiences—he and his family survived the Holocaust by hiding in the woods.”
Haider sees forced displacement, genocide, and the other horrors of war Spitz depicts in the wider context of how these calamities continue to plague humanity today. “I think the most important thing is to be sensitive to other people’s experiences,” he says. “Our neighborhoods and our friendships should extend beyond the cul de sac. We need to gather people together—because if we all go back into our silos and we don’t have this interpenetration of cultures, we’re done for.”
Narratives of Engagement
Coming to Unison in 2023 are other storytelling artists weaving narratives of engagement in diverse and innovative ways, including legendary performance artist Linda Montano, the photographer and installation artist Tiffany Smith, the painter and muralist Kevin Paulson, and Heather Renee Russ, who deals with queer femme concerns with an inventive and varied visual vocabulary.
Also on view will be two collaborative, site-specific exhibitions. Kimberly Ruth, who showed photographs at Unison earlier this year, will team up with Rena Leinberger who makes use of prosaic everyday materials to illuminate the mysteries of sometimes overlapping real and imagined spaces. Indigenous artists and life-partners Tlisza Jaurique and Marcus Zilliox will put a show together as well.
Haider’s view of fostering shared values for the common good includes increasing awareness and appreciation of where we live. Opening on October 1 is “Field Work,” Thomas Sarrantonio’s masterly plein air paintings of local landscapes. Later this fall, Vernon Byron will be utilizing Unison’s second location at 9 Paradies Lane, where he will be building a wigwam-like structure in remembrance of the displacement of the Lenape and other first nations peoples from their lands.
The responsibilities Haider has taken on at Unison are many. They importantly include planning and presenting performance events, as well as creating and supervising educational programs for adults and children. This fall’s programming includes a set of monthly First Friday Open Mics; Unison Arts Academy Movie Lab afterschool classes for students in third through sixth grades; a performance by singer, songwriter, musician, and composer Marc Von Em on October 22; and guitarist David Rogers on November 5. On November 12, singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright is performing a concert to benefit Unison’s programming.
With a very small staff and a coterie of dedicated volunteers and interns, Haider has a lot on his plate. He notes that he needs to increase his focus on the performing arts and maintain his vital fundraising efforts, while, most importantly, building an infrastructure that will sustain Unison for years to come. To that end, he is in the process of helping to add new members to Unison’s board and panel of advisors. Noted artist Jean-Marc Superville Sovak has joined the board. Other luminaries, such as Guggenheim Fellow Phyllis Chen, and Alex Peh, a celebrated pianist and composer and 2021 Fulbright Global Scholar, are supporting Haider’s efforts in ways that will be announced in detail later this fall. Simon Draper, well known as the creator of Habitat for Artists, is also lending his support as is Dan Rigney, former president of Beacon Arts.
Another important focus of Haider’s vision centers on Unison’s 9 Paradies Lane location, which is being utilized for two-month-long artist’s residencies. Applications for 2023 residencies are currently being considered. With the residency program, Haider is primarily concerned with fostering artists’ in-depth thinking about their art, its relation to place, and its function in the grander scheme of things; as well as the audience’s perception and consideration of the “small d” democratic truths artists’ emergent, site-responsive works convey through the processes and actualities of their making. “That’s my bag,” Haider proclaims to a visitor. “It’s always been my bag!”
This article appears in October 2022.
