MIT List Visual Arts Center presents Nairy Baghramian an exhibition on view May 9–July 14, 2013.
Nairy Baghramian (b. 1971, Iran) plays on the supposed distinctions between decoration and function, industrial and handmade, commodity and art object. Her work also centers on the political and social relations implied by objects and the site of display, in particular on the exhibition space as an interior where affect and experience increasingly conflict with luxury and leisure.
For her exhibition at the List, Baghramian abstracts materials and forms derived from utilitarian and maritime objects to draw out the formal and creative processes that define notions of the ‘sculptural.’ The exhibition centers on a group of forms sited in relation to the museum’s architecture. Her Silos share their name with a container or structure used to store bulk or industrial materials. These seemingly soft yet solid forms are created out of sailing fabric, rubber, and pleather. Made from chrome-plated poles, Gurneys—a term to describe wheeled stretchers—are used to support the formless sacks. Baghramian’s Moorings are named after objects used to moor boats in place at port. The artist brings these forms and their complex associations—trade and cargo, the labor of industry and stevedores—into the museum as a means to investigate gendered notions of labor and craft.
MIT List Visual Arts Center
20 Ames St.
Cambridge, MA 02139
listart.mit.edu