Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Infinite Possibility. Mirror Works and Drawings 1974-2014
from 10 OCT 2014 to 11 JAN 2015
Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art presents "Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Infinite Possibility. Mirror Works and Drawings 1974-2014”, the first museum survey of geometric mirror works and drawings by the celebrated Iranian artist Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian (b. 1924, Qazvin).
"Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Infinite Possibility. Mirror Works and Drawings 1974-2014” will focus on Monir’s sculptural and graphic oeuvre over a career of more than forty years. While her practice has also encompassed figurative painting, it is the artist’s distinctive approach to geometric abstraction that provides a compelling entry point to an oeuvre in which objective concepts of repetition and progression, merged with the aesthetic traditions of Islamic architecture and decoration, allow for, in the artist’s own words, ‘infinite possibility’.
The majority of the selected works are from the artist’s own collection, many of which have not been seen publicly since the 1970s.They include early mirror reliefs on plaster on wood, and a series of large-scale geometric mirror-works that formed part of the artist’s exhibition organized by Denise René in her galleries in Paris in 1977, and in New York in the same year.
The exhibition will reveal how the compositional principles of this period were translated into larger-scaled commissions, including a series of etched glass doors she created for her New York townhouse in the 1980s, and into the more ambitiously-scaled mirror sculptures based on the concept of the geometric ‘families’ which the artist has produced in the last decade since reinstating her studio in Teheran in 2004.
A selection of previously unseen abstract compositions on paper based on geometric principles produced by Monir between 1976 and 2014 reveals the central role of drawing as a conceptual foundation for the artist’s sculptural practice. The drawings also offer insight into the artist’s creative output when she was deprived of her studio during the early years of exile in the US following the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
"Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Infinite Possibility. Mirror Works and Drawings 1974-2014” also presents the opportunity to premier a new documentary film on Monir currently in production, directed by Bahman Kiarostami and produced with Iranian curator Leyla Fakhr that looks at the work and life of an artist whose career has been marked by the extremes of political change in her country and abroad.
The exhibition has been organized by the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art. It will travel to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York in March 2015.
Curators: Suzanne CotterProduction: Serralves Foundation
Photo: Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian in her studio working on Heptagon Star, Tehran, 1975. Courtesy of the artist and The Third Line, Dubai
Related Activities OPENING
09 OCT (THU), 22H00, FREE ENTRANCE GUIDED TOURS AND TALKS
10 OCT (FRI), 18H30, AUDITORIUMDocumentary about Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian and conversation with the artist, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Frank Stella and Suzanne Cotter More information here
11 OCT (SAT), 15H00, MUSEUM GALLERIESGuided tour for Members by Liliana Coutinho
24 OCT (FRI), 19h30, MUSEUM GALLERIESGuided visit to the exhibition with Paulo Pires do Vale
29 OCT (WED), 18h30, MUSEUM GALLERIESGuided visit to the exhibition with Kodwo Eshun (UK)
09 JAN (FRI), 18h30, MUSEUM GALLERIESGuided visit to the exhibition with Suzanne Cotter, arqueólogo, Museum Director
More information here GUIDED TOURS BY MUSEUM EDUCATION STAFF
Access: by purchase of Museum+Park ticket
19 OCT (SUN), 12HOO-13H00, MUSEUM GALLERIESBy Paulo Jesus
30 NOV (SUN), 12H00-13H00 , MUSEUM GALLERIESBy Sónia Borges
14 DEC (SUN), 12HOO–13H00, MUSEUM GALLERIESBy Paulo Jesus
04 JAN (SUN), 12H00–13H00, MUSEUM GALLERIESBy Sónia Borges FAMILY WORKSHOP
15 NOV (SAT), 16H30–18H30, MULTIPURPOSE ROOMSENSITIVE GEOMETRIESWorkshop by Sónia Borges and Paulo Jesus More information here COURSE WITH PAULO PIRES DO VALE
17 OCT - 01 NOV 2014EMBRACE THE WATER’S SURFACE: THE MIRROR AS A SYMBOL, MOTIF AND MATTER OF THE WORK OF ARTWith Paulo Pires do Vale - University professor, essayist and curator6 sessions: 17, 18, 24, 25 e 31 OCT and 1 NOV Schedule: Fridays from 19:00 to 21:00 and Saturdays from 10:30 to 13:00 More information here CINEMA
08 and 09 JAN 2015, 21h30, AUDITORIUM A programme of Iranian cinema prepared by the documentary filmmaker Bahman Kiarostami helps unveil Iran's visual culture - which is extremely rich, but to a large extent unknown.
08 JAN 2015
Fifi Howls from Happiness (Fifi Az Khoshhali Zooze Mikeshad)
Mitra Farahani
2013, 96'
09 JAN 2015
Cyanosis (Sianoze)
Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami
2007, 32'
The Treasure Cave
Bahman Kiarostami
2009, 43'
More information here. Multimedia Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian Catalogue Biography
Presentation
Sculptures and Mirror Techniques
Between Tradition and the Present
Drawings
Mirror Balls
Untitled, 1976
Third Family, 2011
Born in Qazvin, Iran, in 1924, Monir Sharoudy Farmanfarmaian attended the Fine Arts College of Tehran beginning in 1944. Soon after, with the intention of continuing her schooling in art in Paris but deflected by the Second World War, she moved to New York, where she studied at Parsons School of Design and worked as freelance illustrator for Vogue and as graphic and fashion designer. In New York, her group of friends comprised artists Milton Avery, Willem de Kooning, Joan Mitchell and Andy Warhol, among others. She returned to Iran in 1957 and journeyed across the country, further developing her artistic sensibility through encounters with traditional craftsmanship. Indigenous art forms such as Turcoman pattern, coffee house paintings and the technique of reverse glass painting found their way into her work resulting into a productive period of artistic discovery and breakthrough, culminating into a series of commissions in Iran, exhibitions in Europe and New York, including Galerie Denise René both in Paris and in New York. The Islamic Revolution in 1979 marked the beginning of Monir’s twenty-six year exile in New York, during which she focused on drawing and a few commissions. In 2004, when she returned to Iran, she re-established her studio there and began to work with some of the same craftsmen she had known in the 1970s. Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Italian Institute, Tehran (1968); the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. (1976); the Iran?America Society, Tehran (1976); the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2006); and Leighton House Museum, London (2008). Her work has also been included in a number of group exhibitions including the First Tehran Biennial (1958); Venice Biennales (1958 gold medal recipient, 1964, and 1966); Gold, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1978–79); Power of Ornament, Orangery, Lower Belvedere, Vienna (2009); East-West Divan and Living Traditions: Contemporary Art From Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan, Venice Biennale (2009); 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane (2009–10); There is always a glass of sea for a man to navigate, 29th São Paulo Biennial (2010); Jeff Guys/Monir Farmanfarmaian, Wiels, Brussels (2013); and Iran Modern, Asia Society Museum, New York (2013?14).Monir’s works are found in numerous public collections, including Tate, London; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Several of the works from the 1970s are in the collection of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. Major commissioned installations are included at the King Abdulaziz Airport in Jeddah; the Dag Hammarskjöld Tower in New York; and the Niavaran Cultural Centre, Teheran.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully ilustrated catalogue. An essay by the exhibition’s curator Suzanne Cotter on Monir’s sculptural and graphic oeuvre will foreground the foundational role of drawing, and the transcultural context of her creative output. Shiva Balaghi (cultural historian of the Middle East, professor of Art History and History at Brown University, Rhode Island, USA) will contribute a contextual essay on Farmamfarmaian’s work from the 1970s and its development to the present in relation to the Iranian artistic, social and political context. Media Farzin (New York-based Art historian and critic) has been invited to examine Monir’s oeuvre within the historical context of the 1970s (a decade in which her mature geometric works were first made) and in broader cultural and formal terms, that embrace notions of craft and decoration. A detailed timeline will situate the artist’s personal and artistic trajectory within the broader context of contemporaneous historical, social and cultural events worldwide.
"Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Infinite Possibility. Mirror Works and Drawings 1974-2014” will focus on Monir’s sculptural and graphic oeuvre over a career of more than forty years. While her practice has also encompassed figurative painting, it is the artist’s distinctive approach to geometric abstraction that provides a compelling entry point to an oeuvre in which objective concepts of repetition and progression, merged with the aesthetic traditions of Islamic architecture and decoration, allow for, in the artist’s own words, ‘infinite possibility’.
The majority of the selected works are from the artist’s own collection, many of which have not been seen publicly since the 1970s.They include early mirror reliefs on plaster on wood, and a series of large-scale geometric mirror-works that formed part of the artist’s exhibition organized by Denise René in her galleries in Paris in 1977, and in New York in the same year.
The exhibition will reveal how the compositional principles of this period were translated into larger-scaled commissions, including a series of etched glass doors she created for her New York townhouse in the 1980s, and into the more ambitiously-scaled mirror sculptures based on the concept of the geometric ‘families’ which the artist has produced in the last decade since reinstating her studio in Teheran in 2004.
A selection of previously unseen abstract compositions on paper based on geometric principles produced by Monir between 1976 and 2014 reveals the central role of drawing as a conceptual foundation for the artist’s sculptural practice. The drawings also offer insight into the artist’s creative output when she was deprived of her studio during the early years of exile in the US following the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
"Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Infinite Possibility. Mirror Works and Drawings 1974-2014” also presents the opportunity to premier a new documentary film on Monir currently in production, directed by Bahman Kiarostami and produced with Iranian curator Leyla Fakhr that looks at the work and life of an artist whose career has been marked by the extremes of political change in her country and abroad.
The exhibition has been organized by the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art. It will travel to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York in March 2015.
Curators: Suzanne CotterProduction: Serralves Foundation
Photo: Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian in her studio working on Heptagon Star, Tehran, 1975. Courtesy of the artist and The Third Line, Dubai
Related Activities OPENING
09 OCT (THU), 22H00, FREE ENTRANCE GUIDED TOURS AND TALKS
10 OCT (FRI), 18H30, AUDITORIUMDocumentary about Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian and conversation with the artist, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Frank Stella and Suzanne Cotter More information here
11 OCT (SAT), 15H00, MUSEUM GALLERIESGuided tour for Members by Liliana Coutinho
24 OCT (FRI), 19h30, MUSEUM GALLERIESGuided visit to the exhibition with Paulo Pires do Vale
29 OCT (WED), 18h30, MUSEUM GALLERIESGuided visit to the exhibition with Kodwo Eshun (UK)
09 JAN (FRI), 18h30, MUSEUM GALLERIESGuided visit to the exhibition with Suzanne Cotter, arqueólogo, Museum Director
More information here GUIDED TOURS BY MUSEUM EDUCATION STAFF
Access: by purchase of Museum+Park ticket
19 OCT (SUN), 12HOO-13H00, MUSEUM GALLERIESBy Paulo Jesus
30 NOV (SUN), 12H00-13H00 , MUSEUM GALLERIESBy Sónia Borges
14 DEC (SUN), 12HOO–13H00, MUSEUM GALLERIESBy Paulo Jesus
04 JAN (SUN), 12H00–13H00, MUSEUM GALLERIESBy Sónia Borges FAMILY WORKSHOP
15 NOV (SAT), 16H30–18H30, MULTIPURPOSE ROOMSENSITIVE GEOMETRIESWorkshop by Sónia Borges and Paulo Jesus More information here COURSE WITH PAULO PIRES DO VALE
17 OCT - 01 NOV 2014EMBRACE THE WATER’S SURFACE: THE MIRROR AS A SYMBOL, MOTIF AND MATTER OF THE WORK OF ARTWith Paulo Pires do Vale - University professor, essayist and curator6 sessions: 17, 18, 24, 25 e 31 OCT and 1 NOV Schedule: Fridays from 19:00 to 21:00 and Saturdays from 10:30 to 13:00 More information here CINEMA
08 and 09 JAN 2015, 21h30, AUDITORIUM A programme of Iranian cinema prepared by the documentary filmmaker Bahman Kiarostami helps unveil Iran's visual culture - which is extremely rich, but to a large extent unknown.
08 JAN 2015
Fifi Howls from Happiness (Fifi Az Khoshhali Zooze Mikeshad)
Mitra Farahani
2013, 96'
09 JAN 2015
Cyanosis (Sianoze)
Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami
2007, 32'
The Treasure Cave
Bahman Kiarostami
2009, 43'
More information here. Multimedia Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian Catalogue Biography
Presentation
Sculptures and Mirror Techniques
Between Tradition and the Present
Drawings
Mirror Balls
Untitled, 1976
Third Family, 2011
Born in Qazvin, Iran, in 1924, Monir Sharoudy Farmanfarmaian attended the Fine Arts College of Tehran beginning in 1944. Soon after, with the intention of continuing her schooling in art in Paris but deflected by the Second World War, she moved to New York, where she studied at Parsons School of Design and worked as freelance illustrator for Vogue and as graphic and fashion designer. In New York, her group of friends comprised artists Milton Avery, Willem de Kooning, Joan Mitchell and Andy Warhol, among others. She returned to Iran in 1957 and journeyed across the country, further developing her artistic sensibility through encounters with traditional craftsmanship. Indigenous art forms such as Turcoman pattern, coffee house paintings and the technique of reverse glass painting found their way into her work resulting into a productive period of artistic discovery and breakthrough, culminating into a series of commissions in Iran, exhibitions in Europe and New York, including Galerie Denise René both in Paris and in New York. The Islamic Revolution in 1979 marked the beginning of Monir’s twenty-six year exile in New York, during which she focused on drawing and a few commissions. In 2004, when she returned to Iran, she re-established her studio there and began to work with some of the same craftsmen she had known in the 1970s. Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Italian Institute, Tehran (1968); the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. (1976); the Iran?America Society, Tehran (1976); the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2006); and Leighton House Museum, London (2008). Her work has also been included in a number of group exhibitions including the First Tehran Biennial (1958); Venice Biennales (1958 gold medal recipient, 1964, and 1966); Gold, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1978–79); Power of Ornament, Orangery, Lower Belvedere, Vienna (2009); East-West Divan and Living Traditions: Contemporary Art From Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan, Venice Biennale (2009); 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane (2009–10); There is always a glass of sea for a man to navigate, 29th São Paulo Biennial (2010); Jeff Guys/Monir Farmanfarmaian, Wiels, Brussels (2013); and Iran Modern, Asia Society Museum, New York (2013?14).Monir’s works are found in numerous public collections, including Tate, London; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Several of the works from the 1970s are in the collection of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. Major commissioned installations are included at the King Abdulaziz Airport in Jeddah; the Dag Hammarskjöld Tower in New York; and the Niavaran Cultural Centre, Teheran.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully ilustrated catalogue. An essay by the exhibition’s curator Suzanne Cotter on Monir’s sculptural and graphic oeuvre will foreground the foundational role of drawing, and the transcultural context of her creative output. Shiva Balaghi (cultural historian of the Middle East, professor of Art History and History at Brown University, Rhode Island, USA) will contribute a contextual essay on Farmamfarmaian’s work from the 1970s and its development to the present in relation to the Iranian artistic, social and political context. Media Farzin (New York-based Art historian and critic) has been invited to examine Monir’s oeuvre within the historical context of the 1970s (a decade in which her mature geometric works were first made) and in broader cultural and formal terms, that embrace notions of craft and decoration. A detailed timeline will situate the artist’s personal and artistic trajectory within the broader context of contemporaneous historical, social and cultural events worldwide.
