MOHAMMED RASHID AL-THANI

31-year-old poet, Mohammed Rashid al-Thani is the visionary behind the Institute of Arab and Islamic Art (IAIA), the first art and cultural space in New York to focus on modern and contemporary art from the Arab and Islamic world. Al-Thani founded the nonprofit in 2015, and in 2017 operated it out of a street-level storefront space on the eastern side of Soho for 14 months, holding three shows in that time. Now IAIA is relocating to a more permanent space in the West Village, which is scheduled to open in July 2019 to the public. Al-Thani will continue to serve as the founding director, along with assuming a newly created curatorial position at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art,