Needle & Thread: Vinyl Records in Artistic Practice

A conversation between artists Amir Fallah and Faisal Abdu'Allah about the interplay between art, music, and culture within their work. Los Angeles–based artist Amir Fallah will join UW–Madison Printmaking Professor, Associate Dean of the Arts, and Chazen Family Distinguished Chair in Art Faisal Abdu’Allah in the Tandem Press studio for Needle & Thread: Vinyl Records in Artistic Practice. Shaped around a curated selection of vinyl tracks, the conversation will explore the ways music influences identity, emotion, and memory. Drawing on their personal histories and broader cultural narratives, Fallah and Abdu’Allah will consider how music can become a powerful medium for storytelling, connecting individual experience to the shared rhythms of everyday life and artistic practice. Amir H. Fallah received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and his MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles. He has exhibited widely in the United States and internationally, with solo exhibitions at institutions including the Fowler Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson, the South Dakota Art Museum, the Schneider Museum of Art, ICA San Diego, and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. Fallah participated in the 9th Sharjah Biennial and has received numerous honors, including a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant, the Northern Trust Purchase Prize at EXPO Chicago, the COLA Individual Artist Fellowship, and an Artadia grant. His work is held in major public and private collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Smart Museum of Art, the Birmingham Museum of Art, the Pérez Collection, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, and institutions across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Dr. Faisal Abdu’Allah is a contemporary artist and academic known for his exploration of identity and perception. Born in 1969 in London, he currently holds the Chazen Family Distinguished Chair in Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and serves as Associate Dean for the Arts & Innovation. His work, which has been exhibited on five continents, includes the Torino Biennale, the 55th Venice Biennale, and Art Basel. His artworks are housed in collections, including Tate Britain and the V&A Museum. He is featured in the Netflix documentary The Fade and was recognized as a Wisconsin Academy Fellow. Abdu’Allah is represented by Magnolia Editions in the USA and Autograph (ABP) in the UK.