Shirana Shahbazi
Breeze
Collector’s Room #7: 35th
Anniversary Edition – Parts I
September 10–October 19, 2014
Opening: Sunday, September 7, 16–18h
Deweer Gallery
Tiegemstraat 6A
8553 Otegem
Belgium
The Swiss Shirana Shahbazi (b. 1974, Teheran) is an internationally acclaimed artist who has, time and again, infused the medium of photography with new approaches. Coinciding with her participation in the 94th edition of the leading Swiss art magazine Parkett, and the run-up to her solo exhibition at the Kunsthalle Bern, Deweer Gallery has the great pleasure to present her work to the Belgian public for the first time.
In her work, Shahbazi effectuates an interaction between abstract and figurative photography, between painting and photographic practice, between historical genres and contemporary forms of presentation, and between an analogue methodology and a digital mind-set. This gives rise to a new visual language that is at once simple and sophisticated. Her work, irrespective of trends, draws upon the full aesthetic and philosophical potential of photography as a medium, and of visual imaging in general.
This has rightfully earned her numerous exhibitions of international standing, including at the 50th Venice Biennale, in the Museum of Modern Art and the New Museum in New York, the Fotomuseum Winterthur, The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and many others. In the exhibition she has designed for Deweer Gallery’s Room II, her first solo exhibition in Belgium, she brings an overview of a number of recent developments in her work, including work that explore a new relationship between abstraction and figuration.
Breeze
Occasionally, we discover a young artist that we would like to present to you right away out of pure enthusiasm. This is why Deweer Gallery initiates Breeze: a series of recurring exhibitions in which we present surprising, young contemporary artists we have come into contact with in the international circuit.
This first edition of Breeze will feature works by Gabriele Beveridge, Michael Seidner and Buck Ellison.
With realistic yet enigmatic works, Buck Ellison (b. 1987, San Francisco, US) pushes the limits of photography as a form of representation. Experimenting with stereotypical approaches taken from all kinds of photographic genres, he creates fascinating, new images which do not reveal all their meaning and critical potential at once.
Read as the result of painterly acts and decisions, the paintings of Michael Seidner (b. 1985, Nuremberg, Germany) betray a rare intensity and concentration. Fundamentally expressive through gesture and paint and the direct outcome of a physical and mental process, they stay with the viewer long after he’s been confronted with them.
In her installations, Gabriele Beveridge (b. 1985, Hong Kong) turns found images into icons. Images and objects which seem to testify of holding on to something while losing it interact to form a poetical dialogue in which the motives of ephemerality, matter and beauty recur.
Collector’s Room #7: 35th Anniversary Edition – Parts I
Celebration, also, in the Collector’s Room: the Collector’s Room # 7: 35th Anniversary Edition presents, in two consecutive parts, a selection of works from our collection.
A gallery with a history of 35 years has obviously been through a lot, yet has also helped achieve a lot. Deweer Gallery, whose policy it has always been not to sell a number of important works right away, is no exception in this respect. On the occasion of our anniversary, we present to you, in two consecutive exhibitions, a number of those key works. Every single one of them has been of pivotal importance to both our collaboration with our artists and the development of their oeuvre. Some of them have in the meantime even found their place in the history of contemporary art. Participating artists Stephan Balkenhol, Sergey Bratkov, Johannes Brus, Tony Cragg, Enzo Cucchi, Jan De Cock, Wim Delvoye, Jan Fabre, Günther Förg, Ilya & Emilia Kabakov, Matthieu Laurette, Enrique Marty, Gerhard Merz, Aernout Mik, Josef Felix Müller, Panamarenko, and Bernhard Prinz.
ArtInternational Istanbul 2014
With works by Michaël Aerts, Stephan Balkenhol, Tony Cragg, Jan De Cock, Jan Fabre, Günther Förg, Benjamin Moravec and Shirana Shahbazi
26–28 September 2014
Booth C6
www.artinternational14.com
