SIROUS NAMAZI AT GALERIE NORDENHAKE, STOCKHOLM

Untitled (Modules), 2008, water-cut steel, lacquer, 126.7 x 125.2 x 130.4cm

Dear Shaded Viewers,

SIROUS NAMAZI
Opening: May 15, 2008, 17.00-20.00
Exhibition period: May 16 – June 20, 2008

Galerie Nordenhake is pleased to present Sirous Namazi’s second solo exhibition in Stockholm. In 2007 the artist represented Sweden at the Nordic Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennial. A new catalog on Sirous Namazi, including an extensive text by Fredrik Liew, will be released on the opening night.

In this exhibition Namazi ties together some of the main themes he has been addressing throughout his production: minimalism, architecture, interior/exterior, waste and failure as well as social structures and Outsiderness. At the same time he extrapolates the series that have occupied him over the last few years, namely, Container, Untitled (Modules), and 1:1.

Container II is a new work in a series of disassembled garbage containers, laid flat against the floor. Namazi draws to the fore the formal elements of the container’s form and colour. The ready-made also has strong conceptual aspects concerning consumption and globalization. In its interplay between the interior and exterior surfaces it fails in its attempt to contain the world.

Works in the Module series are composed of a down-scaled prototype of an architectural unit. Reminiscent of Sol LeWitt’s objects, Namazi’s spatial studies are visualizations of an architectural standard, both structural and social. The skeletal rooms, industrially lacquered using the RAL colour system, address themes of architecture, minimalism, transparency and volume.

Untitled (Interiors) is a suite of 7 photographs depicting an empty quotidian apartment in the dark. This photographic work relates strongly to painting: shadow, light, colour and perception. Initially the images look like formal black monochromes but after a few seconds a room appears out of the darkness. The work deals with an existential tension between seeing and blindness.

A four-panel Untitled pixel painting depicts a rubbish dump. The enamel painted pixels only reveal their motif at a distance, putting the surface of the painting in a constant negotiation between abstraction and representation. The enamel surface has the same qualities of the ready-mades in Container II and Modules – both painterly and industrial. As in Patterns of Failure, Namazi’s pixel paintings deal with issues of consumption, waste and failure.

Sirous Namazi was born in 1970 in Kerman, Iran. Namazi completed his MFA at the Malmö Art Academy, Sweden, in 1998. In 2007 Namazi represented Sweden (with Jakob Dahlgren) at the 52nd Venice Biennial in the Nordic Pavillion. He has received awards from the Ljunggrenska Konstnärspriset in 2003 and the Carnegie Art Award in 2006 (Best Emerging Young Artist). The Carnegie Art Award exhibition toured extensively internationally over three years. Namazi has exhibited at Moderna Museet, Stockholm solo in 2003 and group in 2006. Later this year he will exhibit solo at Kunstverein Arnsberg, Germany, in spring 2009 at Lund’s Konsthall and in a group show at Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Rovereto, Italy.

Opening: May 15, 2008, 17.00-20.00
Exhibition period: May 16 – June 20, 2008
Opening hours: Tuesday - Friday 11.00–18.00, Saturday - Sunday 12.00–16.00
Installation views are available after the opening at www.nordenhake.com
Please contact the gallery for further information and press images

CHRISTIAN ANDERSSON MIROSLAW BALKA ANN BÖTTCHER JOHN COPLANS JONAS DAHLBERG ANN EDHOLM SPENCER FINCH HREINN FRIDFINNSSON ANTONY GORMLEY FRANKA HÖRNSCHEMEYER GUNILLA KLINGBERG EVA LÖFDAHL INGO MELLER MEUSER ESKO MÄNNIKKÖ SIROUS NAMAZI WALTER NIEDERMAYR MARJETICA POTRČ HÅKAN REHNBERG ULRICH RÜCKRIEM KARIN SANDER MICHAEL SCHMIDT LEON TARASEWICZ JOHAN THURFJELL ALAN UGLOW GÜNTER UMBERG MAGNUS WALLIN RÉMY ZAUGG

Later,

DIane