Anahita Razmi Carbon 12
Anahita Razmi, Here Scripts, 2016. HD Video, 9 minutes 33 seconds, Carbon 12
Anahita Razmi was born in 1981 in Hamburg and she lives and works in Berlin, Germany. She studied at the Pratt Institute (NY) and Academy of Fine Arts (Stuttgart) prior to her institution- laden exhibition history of her video and performance works, including the 55th Venice Biennale, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart and MAK Center for Art and Architecture amongst numerous others, has received several international art grants and is in the permanent collections of several International collections. Razmi’s body of work focuses on issues of identity and gender while appropriating national, cultural and artistic references to reposition pop-culture within a contemporary Iranian context, giving her re-embodied, re-contextualized works a tongue-in-cheek quality.
Nargess Hashemi Isabelle Van Den Eynde
Nargess Hashemi,A Sound Sleeper, 2015, Isabelle Van Den Eynde
Nargess Hashemi (born 1979, Tehran) lives and works in Tehran. Hashemi’s works are intimate observations of the dualities that permeate her daily life in Iran by using a diverse range of techniques and materials including monoprinting, macramé, graph paper and acetate. Her style is continuously evolving, from her largely figurative works depicting intimate, domestic and celebratory scenes, to her most recent works in which she uses graph paper to experiment with more abstract, geometric compositions. Despite this new direction the central themes of the artist’s work remains, which is her preoccupation with the familial routines and habits that she grew up with. These elements are evident in her works and reflect a conflicted sense of belonging and detachment, nostalgia and uneasiness, comfort and entrapment, all at the same time. The use of pattern is another dominant element in Hashemi’s work.
From the kitschy wrapping paper used as the background in her Wrap Me Up in You series, to the complex bands of repetitive, brightly coloured shapes occupying the minute 1 mm x 1 mm squares of graph paper in her Home and Carpet series, she uses pattern in its many varying forms as both literal and abstract manifestations of the influence of environment and tradition. She grew up in a traditional Iranian household and studied Ancient Persian at the Neyshabour Institute and Fine Art at Tehran University. She went on to show her work in several solo shows in the Iranian capital, such as Mah Art Gallery and Aaran Gallery. She has also participated in Iranian Spring (2004) – an exhibition of six artists inspired by Persian miniature painting and poetry – who were selected by the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. She was also part of a touring group show, entitled Wishes and Dreams: Iran’s New Generation Emerges (2007). Hashemi has had several solo shows at Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde such as Stories from the Boudoir (2008), Wrap Me Up in You (2010) and The Pleasure in Boredom (2014).
Tomokazu Matsuyama Zidoun Bossuyt Gallery
Tomokazu Matsuyama, Never End Free, 2017, Zidoun Bossuyt Gallery
Tomokazu Matsuyama was born in Gifu, Japan in 1976 and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He received his MFA in Communications Design from the Pratt Institute (NY). Matsuyama’s important exhibitions include the Japan Society, New York; the Harvard University, Massachusetts, and the Katzen Arts Center at American University Museum, Washington D.C., and Museum of Contemporary Art Museum, Sydney, Australia, among other galleries and institutions. His work can also be seen in the public collections of the Cosmopolitan Hotel Group (NV), the Royal Family (Dubai, UAE), The Standard Hotel (Andre Balazs Group) and Microsoft Collection among others. In August 2014 he was awarded the Harbour City Gallery Public Art Commission in Hong Kong. He was selected to show with HOCA Foundation, Hong Kong, in 2017.
Lu Chao Rosenfeld Porcini
Lu Chao, Relic No.2, 2017, Rosenfeld Porcini
Lu Chao (born in 1988 in Shenyang, China) currently lives and works between London and Beijing. He completed his Bachelor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts – Oil painting department – in Beijing, China and his Masters at the painting department of the Royal College of Art in London, UK. Lu Chao’s paintings has had solo shows in ambitious international galleries such as Rosenfeld Porcini (London), Nathalie Obadia (Paris) and Hadrien de Montferrand (Bejing). Earlier this year an acclaimed duo exhibition featuring his work was held in Venice during the Venice Biennale. His work has been acquired by the Louis Vuitton Collection, DSL Collection, The Strock Collection along with several private collections.
“When I was a very small child I took the bus 217 everyday to go to school. Being small I was continuously squashed by a crowd of taller people pushing through, and it was often very hard to go in or out of the bus. The memory of this crowd often appears vividly in my mind. And so I am always very sensitive to crowd of people and the images of those where depression, helplessness and vulnerability are contained together always stayed with me as I grew up. At the same time I always like to observe each person trying to squeeze his way in a crowd of people, because I know very well that I am just like them, and looking at each of their faces I seem to be looking at myself. I always think that each face can tell a story, the story of an experience already past or a prediction of an event about to happen. All the small black people in my paintings are my response to all the strangers I’ve encountered in my life.” ( Lu Chao)
Yelena and Viktor Vorobyev Aspan Gallery
Yelena and Viktor Vorobyev,Vintage (Harsh Detention of Protesters), 2018, Aspan Gallery
Yelena Vorobyeva was born 1959 in Balkanabat (former Nebit Dag), Turkmenistan. Viktor Vorobyev was born 1959 in Pavlodar, Kazakhstan. They live and work in Almaty. Yelena and Viktor Vorobyev have been working together since 1990s. Their usage of different genres and techniques results in multi-layered, often ironic, works focussing on Post-Soviet realities of constant change, disorientation and their effects on everyday life. The artists have been compiling a precise record of the ephemeral and quotidian details of daily life, local particulars, subjects that have been often overlooked and are not exactly photogenic. They do so in series, sorting images according to their typology. While seemingly insignificant, these details (of objects, colours and customs) are integral to the creation of the new symbols of power, and serve as poignant social metaphors. The pair engages deeply with the environment they live in, examining its socio-cultural underlining, using a light and humorous approach.
In 2015 Aspan Gallery has staged Vorobyevs’ mid-career restrospective The Artist is Asleep at the A. Kasteev Museum of Arts, Almaty, curated by Viktor Misiano. Notable recent group shows include Viva Arte Viva, 57th Venice Biennale (2017), 8th Asia-Pacific Triennale in Brisbane (2015), BALAGAN!!! in Berlin (2015), The Beast and the Sovereign at MACBA in Barcelona and Württembergischer Kunstverein in Stuttgart (2015), 1st Kyiv Biennale (2012), 14th Sculpture Biennale of Carrara (2010) and Central Asia Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2009, 2005).
