Shirazeh Houshiary
dal 24/10/2003 al 20/12/2003
Segnalato da
24/10/2003
Shirazeh Houshiary
Lehmann Maupin, New York
This is Houshiary's second solo exhibition at the gallery and it includes new paintings and her first animation film installation. Houshiary's canvases can neither be described as paintings nor defined as drawings. It is as if she has divested the canvas of all its painterly associations and returned it to its natural state as cloth from which an image, neither depicted nor delineated, imperceptibly emerges.
Lehmann Maupin would like to announce an exhibition of new work by Shirazeh
Houshiary. This is Houshiary's second solo exhibition at the gallery and it
includes new paintings and her first animation film installation.
Shirazeh Houshiary was born and raised in Iran and moved to London in 1974 to
study at Chelsea School of Art. After graduating, she rapidly established
herself as one of the leading artists of her generation. Initially known for
her sculpture, her first works on canvas date back to 1992. She has had solo
exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, Camden Arts Centre in London,
and the Museum Villa Stuck in Munich, among others, and was nominated for the
Turner Prize in 1994.
Houshiary's canvases can neither be described as paintings nor defined as
drawings. It is as if she has divested the canvas of all its painterly
associations and returned it to its natural state as cloth from which an
image, neither depicted nor delineated, imperceptibly emerges. The shimmering
surface entices the spectator towards a veil traced in graphite or ink.
Houshiary typically immerses herself in one of the larger canvases for several
weeks, executing the graphite "drawing" in a slow dance around the canvas,
which is laid on the floor, or by bending into it as if in prayer. These are
not fashionable gestures toward shamanism, but part of a practical process
that has evolved naturally over the years. In her earlier work the "marks"
with which she created patterns on the canvas were composed of minute sacred
words, repeated like a mantra. In the more recent works, words and forms are
dissolved and light is released.
The chants kept mute in Houshiary's paintings are animated in a four-screen
video installation entitled Breath. Each screen visualizes the movement of
breath as mist expanding, contracting, and shimmering as a vocalist offers
invocations from different cultures and religions. On approaching different
screens the breath of the spectator merges with that of the vocalist,
momentarily sharing breath of different cultures.
Opening Reception: Saturday 25 October, 6 - 8 PM
Lehmann Maupin
540 WEST 26TH STREET
NEW YORK, NY 10012
T.212.255.2923
F.212.255.2924