Shahpour Pouyan @ Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai - My Place is the Placeless

Shahpour Pouyan: My Place is the Placeless 
Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai
Through 15 January, 2018

Lawrie Shabibi presents the third solo exhibition in Dubai of New York-based Iranian artist SHAHPOUR POUYAN. The exhibition takes its title from a phrase in a poem by Mawlana Rumi, and speaks of Pouyan’s rejection of national and ethnic labeling.

Four years ago Shahpour Pouyan took a genetic ancestry test. The results revealed a DNA ancestry of thirty-three modern countries spread across Central Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Caucasus Mountains, Northern Europe and the British Isles. Some of the countries were surprising, such as Norway, Ireland and Bhutan, while others were less so, such as Iraq, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Shahpour Pouyan spent two years obsessively researching distinctive historic architecture from these thirty-three countries with the aim of unearthing their most significant monuments and ‘constructing’ his own identity through the language of architecture.

The core of the exhibition revolves around a large-scale cuboid industrial steel construction upon which rest the thirty-three ceramic sculptures – the results of his research. Each sculpture is representative of a dome from a monumental building in the country of the artist’s genetic extraction as revealed by the genetic test. Some domes relate to religious buildings or places of worship, others as pure statements of grandiosity and power.

The artist takes a Foucauldian approach in developing a personalized genealogy of the dome, highlighting the human tendency to memorialize legacies of power, just as genetic heritage is often a record of these same legacies of conquest. In addition, the organization of the domes implies a Darwinist typology where the basic form of the dome undergoes various morphologic transformations as a result of contact and conflict between cultures. However, the cuboid installation questions the narrative of progress by connecting the most sophisticated dome of the series back with the simplest structure.

The cuboid construction upon which the sculptures rest evokes the simplified forms of modernist architects such as Le Corbusier to minimalist sculptors such as Donald Judd who were concerned with reducing form to its purest incarnation.

Shahpour Pouyan’s sculptures by contrast deliberately refer to a colorful and diverse pre-modern architectural heritage rooted in an archaic past. Each work is made from a different type of clay and glaze so that each piece is distinct; no two works appear the same, creating a sense of diversity and even disarray. By placing these objects within the cube, Shahpour Pouyan 'contaminates' the chaste minimalist structure, destroying its qualities and questioning notions of purity in relation to art, architecture and anthropology.

Alongside the series of ceramic works, Shahpour Pouyan presents a series of hand-modified photographs found in imagery from Byzantine, Nordic, Mesopotamian and Persian sources. The figures (such as those seen on coins, manuscripts, miniatures, and sculptures) have been manipulated to subtly incorporate his own features – they are self-portraits of his past and present self. Through a reverse violation of these historical artifacts, Pouyan reiterates the self as embodiment of past histories of political aggression.

By performing what he describes as an 'archeology of the self’ Shahpour Pouyan critiques such arbitrary classifications of identity. In today’s global climate, where radical nationalism is on the rise and migration is one of our greatest contemporary challenges, Pouyan’s exhibition is a timely exhibition for uncertain times.

SHAHPOUR POUYAN 

Shahpour Pouyan has had numerous solo exhibitions most recently We Owe This Considerable Land to the Horizon Line, Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris, France, 2017; History Travels at Different Speeds, Copperfield, London, UK, 2015; PTSD, Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai, UAE, 2014 and Full Metal Jacket, Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai, UAE, 2011. Notable group shows include participations in the 7th Beijing Biennale, 2017;  Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India, 2016; Jameel Prize 4 Pera Museum Istanbul, Turkey and Asia Culture Centre, Gwangju, Korea; Rebel, Jester, Mystic, Poet: Contemporary Persians, Museum of Fine Art, Houston and Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, Canada, 2017; Iranian Voices, Recent Acquisitions of Works on Paper, British Museum, 2017; For an Image, Faster Than Light, Yinchuan Museum of Contemporary Art, Yinchuan, China; Global/Local 1960-2015: Six Artists From Iran, Grey Art Gallery, New York University, 2016; Memory and Continuity: A Selection from the Huma Kabakci Collection, Pera Museum, Istanbul, Turkey, 2016; Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India, 2016; Young Collectors, The Elgiz Museum, Istanbul, Turkey, 2014 and the Mykonos Biennale, Greece, 2013. 

His work is part of many prominent private and public collections including The Abby Weed Grey Collection of Modern Asian and Middle Eastern Art, New York;  The British Museum, London; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Mohammed Afkhami Collection, Dubai, Huma Kabakci Collection, Istanbul; SYZYGY, New York; The Farjam collection, Dubai; Zoroastrian Cultural Institute, Paris and the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Tehran. 

In 2016, Shahpour Pouyan was shortlisted for the Jameel Prize 4 by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and has been awarded the Civitella Ranieri Fellowship for Visual Arts in Umbria.

LAWRIE SHABIBI
Al Serkal Avenue, unit 21, Al Quoz, Dubai
www.lawrieshabibi.com

Nabil Nahas at Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai, UAE

Nabil Nahas 
Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai 
Through January 9, 2014 

NABIL NAHAS brings his inimitable sense of scale, opulence, and sheer sumptousness back to Dubai this November with a second solo exhibition at Lawrie Shabibi. Focusing this time on his three-dimensional paintings, as tactile as they are optical, the exhibition leads on from his previous show at the gallery, which comprised his starfish paintings and landscapes. The forthcoming solo presents Nahas’ two other areas of production- Fractals, his best-known series, and his Galactic paintings.

Nabil Nahas’ heavily encrusted Fractals are built up of ground pumice and acrylic and finished in psychedelic tones. The name Fractals refers to Benoit Mandelbrot ‘s theory of fractal geometry, formulated in the mid-1970s, and describes random events in nature deviating from the ideal Euclidean geometry and rough or fragmented geometric shapes which can be split into parts, each of which is at least approximately a reduced size copy of the whole. Mandelbrot said that things typically considered to be "rough", a "mess" or "chaotic", like clouds or shorelines, actually had a "degree of order. Thus Nahas’ Fractals represent a kind of asymmetrical equilibrium, a relationship between order and disorder that is a recurrent theme in his work.

Ostensibly abstract at first sight, imperceptibly Nabil Nahas’ paintings sidestep the parameters of abstract art. His paintings are literal- his images are always taken from something and often infer movement and refer to a moment in time.

Varying considerably in size and colour, his Fractals evoke a variety of scales and moods. The smallest of them are like windows into an underwater world of coral reefs, whilst the larger works overpower the viewer like the encrusted surface of a leviathan. Subtle variations in tone and colour ripple across their mottled surfaces like the dappled light of tropical waters along the seabed. Their surfaces imitate the encrustations seen in the natural world. The extraordinary Kind of Blue, a large-scale canvas in deep blue is composed of layer upon layer of protruding biomorphic shapes fringed with bright blue edges.

Whilst Nabil Nahas sees his Fractal paintings as representations of the phenomenal world on a microcosmic scale, his Galactic paintings engage with it on more of a scale that seems more macrocosmic. Rather than the all-over effect of the Fractals, the Galactic paintings are both three-dimensional and graphic, with fluid forms and sinuous lines moving around their surfaces. The lines and shapes on the one hand suggest the interactions and repulsions between heavenly bodies, and on the other they also resemble amoebic life forms. This series incorporates paint chips, a by-product of making Nahas’ larger paintings. The vividly coloured concentric rings are detritus recycled from the studio floor- they are ready-made objects of the artist’s own making, revealing the previously unseen process through which he makes his larger paintings- the built-up under-surfaces of his acrylic-pumice mix.  Scale is important in Nahas’ universe, but always ambiguous- what is grandly architectural is also microscopic. This is especially apparent in Inka Dinka Doo, the largest work in the series, which form the centre piece of the exhibition.

This series incorporates paint chips, a by-product of making Nahas’ larger paintings. The vividly coloured concentric rings are detritus recycled from the studio floor- they are ready-made objects of the artist’s own making, revealing the previously unseen process through which he makes his larger paintings- the built-up under-surfaces of his acrylic-pumice mix.

NABIL NAHAS is Lebanon's most renowned artist, having established himself before the current heightened interest in contemporary art of the Middle East, first in New York art circles as a master of colour, texture and atmosphere. Although thoroughly schooled in Western abstract painting, Nahas takes his inspiration from a diverse range of influences, most significantly nature, and occasionally Islamic art, in particular its abstract geometric and chromatic qualities.

His works can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, the Vorhees Zimmerli Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey,  the Colby College Museum of Art, Maine, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, the Flint Institute of Art, Michigan, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Mathaf, Doha and the Michigan Museum of Art UMMA. In July 2013 he was awarded the honour of the National Order of the Cedar, for services to Lebanese culture.

Lawrie Shabibi 
Al Serkal Avenue, unit 21, Al Quoz
Dubai, UAE
www.lawrieshabibi.com