Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery. Photo credit: Abigail Enzaldo
Nairy Baghramian (b. 1971) was born in Iran and has lived and worked in Berlin since 1984. Baghramian's work comprises sculpture and installation often in reference to architecture and the human body, capturing its poses in traditional materials such as marble and steel. This interest is inspired by the way Baghramian's childhood dance teacher spoke of separating movement into distinct components. This early line of thought has expanded to the contemplation of the "prosthetic" relationship between the human body and its immediate surroundings with which her work has become associated.
Baghramian will speak about how her practice addresses temporal, spatial and social relationships to language, history, and the present moment. Her sculptural forms seek an open, discursive dialogue with a given site. Baghramian, through her artwork, seeks to free the assigned relationship between an object and its meaning.
Recent solo shows include those at Galleria d'Arte Moderna (GAM), Milan, (2021), MUDAM Luxembourg (2019), Palacio de Cristal, Madrid (2018), the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2017), Statens Museum for Kunst, National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen (2017), Museum of Contemporary Art, Ghent (2016), Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zürich (2016), and Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2015). Shortlisted for the Hugo Boss Prize in 2020, Baghramian won the Nasher Prize in 2022. She has participated in the Yorkshire Sculpture International at The Hepworth Wakefield, UK (2019); Venice Biennale, Italy (2019 and 2011); Skulptur Projekt Munster, Germany (2017 and 2007); and the 8th and 5th Berlin Biennale, Germany (2014 and 2008).
Tickets: www.stadsmissionen.se/stockholms-stadsmissions-motesplats-vid-mariatorget/kalendarium/world-my-eyes-nairy-baghramian
All the islands in the ocean
All the heavens in the motion
Let me show you the world in my eyes
- Depeche Mode (1990)
In its inaugural season, World in My Eyes: An Artist Lecture Series presents Emeka Ogboh, Yazan Khalili, Nairy Baghramian, and in 2024 Pope.L. Each artist contributes to both the discursive and formal hybridity of contemporary art at a moment of acute geopolitical volatility and increasing polarization.
Launched in 2023, World in My Eyes is a series of artist talks in Stockholm presented through a collaboration between Konstfack, Moderna Museet, and the Royal Institute of Art, and hosted in 2023-2024 by Mötesplats Mariatorget. Its title drawn from the eponymous 1990s electronic music hit by English band Depeche Mode, the series aims to present artistic perspectives from a wide range of media that are changing the relationship between material processes and socio-political imagination.