Andisheh Avini
23 Oct - 22 Nov 2014
View of the exhibition
galerie frank elbaz, Paris, October 23rd to November 22nd, 2014
Photo Zarko Vijatovic
galerie frank elbaz, Paris, October 23rd to November 22nd, 2014
Photo Zarko Vijatovic
ANDISHEH AVINI
23 October - 22 November 2014
If André Malraux said that culture is not inherited but conquered, Andisheh Avini transforms, sunders, modernizes it and by means of different processes of realization, appropriates it. Blending cultural heritage, technical know-how and socio-political statement, he uses strong symbols of Iranian history, in order to transmit to the beholder, the modern vision of a multicultural man, attuned with his time and his diverse origins.
Symbols plays a predominant role in Avini's work, using the millenary axioms of Persian culture, he employs the practices of tapestry, drawing and marquetry. Each objects posses a double function, both practical and symbolical. True testimonies of the past echo the present of American contemporary art history, thus finding a balance between minimalism and pop art in order to re-contextualise a part of his own personal tale.
Tapestry in Orient has always been an object of extraordinary complexity both by its esthetic as well as its fabrication. By using it as a ready made object, Avini questions again the space of creation that is the canvas. Here, the carpets are the own support of the artist's pictorial creations, acutely exploring a medium originally inscribed in horizontality. The works are hand made as tradition requires it in Iran.
By the non evocation of an objective reality, by the choice of supports, mediums and formats, the abstraction of Avini's works plays with notions of surface and depth.
In close connection with the ancestral Persian art, the artist transforms the ornamented and finely crafted objects into minimalistic structures, giving rhythm to his simple forms in uncluttered spaces, totally liberated of traditional constraints, conferring them a total fluidity.
Avini also takes hold of the art of marquetry. In Persian, we can translate the term marquetry by "work of inlaying". Fine and meticulous by nature, associating geometrical drawings and mathematical repetitions, the patterns of abstract nature flow seamlessly, giving form to a structure paced with precision. Once again, Avini seizes existing traditional elements in order to create thoroughly modern spaces.
Throughout all, the artist's political discourse is still present nonetheless. Thus the eyes of power, a recurrent symbol in his work, are intensely stares at us as if to mark the perennity of a still actual system. In echo and in homage to Warhol's silkscreen works starting from Marilyn Monroe to Mao or Kennedy.
For his inaugural project with the gallery, the artist presents a selection of works in dialalogue with the space. The verticality of the pieces displayed finds a resonance with the site so as to offer a true experience of two worlds and two cultures merging; a true point of convergence between two realities that produces a third one...
Thus, the process of appropriation, more than just a simple abstract testimony becomes a tangible sharing, supported by the viewer's gaze.
Jonathan Taieb
23 October - 22 November 2014
If André Malraux said that culture is not inherited but conquered, Andisheh Avini transforms, sunders, modernizes it and by means of different processes of realization, appropriates it. Blending cultural heritage, technical know-how and socio-political statement, he uses strong symbols of Iranian history, in order to transmit to the beholder, the modern vision of a multicultural man, attuned with his time and his diverse origins.
Symbols plays a predominant role in Avini's work, using the millenary axioms of Persian culture, he employs the practices of tapestry, drawing and marquetry. Each objects posses a double function, both practical and symbolical. True testimonies of the past echo the present of American contemporary art history, thus finding a balance between minimalism and pop art in order to re-contextualise a part of his own personal tale.
Tapestry in Orient has always been an object of extraordinary complexity both by its esthetic as well as its fabrication. By using it as a ready made object, Avini questions again the space of creation that is the canvas. Here, the carpets are the own support of the artist's pictorial creations, acutely exploring a medium originally inscribed in horizontality. The works are hand made as tradition requires it in Iran.
By the non evocation of an objective reality, by the choice of supports, mediums and formats, the abstraction of Avini's works plays with notions of surface and depth.
In close connection with the ancestral Persian art, the artist transforms the ornamented and finely crafted objects into minimalistic structures, giving rhythm to his simple forms in uncluttered spaces, totally liberated of traditional constraints, conferring them a total fluidity.
Avini also takes hold of the art of marquetry. In Persian, we can translate the term marquetry by "work of inlaying". Fine and meticulous by nature, associating geometrical drawings and mathematical repetitions, the patterns of abstract nature flow seamlessly, giving form to a structure paced with precision. Once again, Avini seizes existing traditional elements in order to create thoroughly modern spaces.
Throughout all, the artist's political discourse is still present nonetheless. Thus the eyes of power, a recurrent symbol in his work, are intensely stares at us as if to mark the perennity of a still actual system. In echo and in homage to Warhol's silkscreen works starting from Marilyn Monroe to Mao or Kennedy.
For his inaugural project with the gallery, the artist presents a selection of works in dialalogue with the space. The verticality of the pieces displayed finds a resonance with the site so as to offer a true experience of two worlds and two cultures merging; a true point of convergence between two realities that produces a third one...
Thus, the process of appropriation, more than just a simple abstract testimony becomes a tangible sharing, supported by the viewer's gaze.
Jonathan Taieb