Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian @ James Cohan Gallery, NYC - Mirror-works and Drawings (2004 - 2016)

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian

Mirror-works and Drawings (2004 - 2016)

James Cohan Gallery, New York

48 Walker Street, January 29 -  March 6, 2021

291 Grand Street, January 29 - February 27, 2021

MONIR SHAHROUDY FARMANFARMAIAN

Untitled Maze, 2015

Mirror and reverse glass painting on plaster and wood

53 1/8 x 53 1/8 in., 135 x 135 cm

Courtesy James Cohan Gallery

James Cohan presents an exhibition of work by Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, on view from January 29 through March 6 at 48 Walker Street and January 29 through February 27 at 291 Grand Street. The exhibition spans both of the gallery’s locations, with a presentation of two major sculptural series in Tribeca and a selection of the artist’s geometric drawings and Convertible sculptures in the Lower East Side. This is the late artist’s first exhibition with James Cohan.

Over six decades, MONIR SHAHROUDY FARMANFARMAIAN (1922 - 2019) investigated the intricate geometries of her Iranian heritage, reconfiguring traditional craft techniques to explore the philosophical, poetic, and perceptual possibilities of interlocking primary forms. In her work, rigorous structure and repetition are the foundations of invention and limitless variation. Spanning mirrored mosaics, sculptural assemblage, drawings, textiles and monotypes, Monir’s multidimensional practice centered on incorporating elements from her inherited past into her own designs—which blended a range of compositional influences, from classical Persian interior decoration to Western modernism. 

Monir is best known for her geometric mirror-works, in which cut polygonal fragments of reverse-painted, reflective glass are arranged into kaleidoscopic compositions grounded on principles of Islamic geometry. Tied to a mystical understanding of primary shapes as sacred and connected to a divine natural order, her unit-based compositions of luminous glass reveal uniformity, repetition, and precedent as the basis for endless recombination. This two-part exhibition brings together major mirror-mosaic works and related geometric drawings from the prolific period following Monir's return to Iran in 2004.

On view at the Tribeca gallery are five major Maze works: Triangle Maze, Square Maze, Pentagon Maze, Hexagon Maze (all 2014), and Untitled Maze (2015). In these sculptures, the traditional surface of the mirror-mosaic is dissected and reassembled into a maze form, opening up spatial arrangements drawn from architectural convention to new possible interpretations. For Monir, the luminous reverse-painted glass pathways in these wall-based sculptures invoke the mazes of Persian gardens as well as the extravagant hedge labyrinths of English and French estate gardens. Her Maze works incorporate sacred geometries to give meditative, physical expression to the Farsi adage Hameesheh yek raah hast—“there is always a way”—inviting the viewer to discover their way in and their way out of the path laid out by the artist.

Monir often grouped her work in series she called “families,” suggesting a familial and conceptual affinity of form, dimensionality, or structure between works in each group. Each family comprises eight sculptures, which begin with the fundamental form of the triangle and progress through the remaining seven regular polygons in Euclidean geometry. In the central gallery, three exemplary works from Monir’s Fourth Family (2013) are each anchored by central, multi-sided linear shapes whose features define an outward-spanning tessellation of form. Like the sequence of Maze works in the previous gallery, Fourth Family Pentagon, Fourth Family Hexagon, and Fourth Family Octagon unfold in a progression of geometric complexity, each subsequent form composed of more facets and more angles.

The Convertible sculptures on view in Tribeca marry Monir’s enduring interest in repetition and seriality with explorations into modularity and permutability. Each wall-based mirror work is composed of segments that can be assembled in myriad patterns, folded and unfolded according to diagrams drawn by the artist—some based on extant decorative patterns, and others of her own invention. In Monir’s own words, they enable her to “play with ideas of infinity.” Khordad - Convertible Series (2011) is named for the third month of the Persian solar calendar, a timekeeping system that begins each year on the vernal equinox. The work is composed of four individual forms that each suggest the sinuous trefoil arches of early Islamic architecture. Reflection Five (2010) is a wall-based sculpture that consists of one central rhombus and four identical square-shaped forms which, in the Islamic tradition, symbolize North, South, West, and East. By organizing the forms according to her own design, and invoking concepts central to Minimalism such as modularity, the shape’s axes are complicated, demonstrating the fluidity and generative potential of geometric structure.

With Installation of 9 elements (2004), on view at the Lower East Side gallery, Monir employs diagrammatic organization to establish a spatial order between dissimilar, mirrored forms. Layering contemporary ideas with an Islamic integration of mathematics, bodily presence, and spirituality, this immersive installation work reconnects 20th century abstraction with its theological roots to invite sublime perceptual experience grounded in the body of the viewer. Monir explained in a conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist, “With the reflections, you’re also a part of the art piece. Your own appearance, your own face, your own clothing—if you move, it is a part of the art. You’re the connection: it is the mix of human being and reflection and

artwork.”

Exhibited alongside this nine-element installation are two mirror works whose shapes respond to Sufi mathematical principles, and a selection of historically significant drawings. Drawing was an integral throughline in Monir’s wideranging practice, providing a means for exercising dimensional thinking through experimentation with geometric structure. The drawings on view in this exhibition were created in the 1990s and 2000s, when Monir returned to Tehran after a 26-year period of exile in New York following the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Collectively, they demonstrate her decades-long, two-dimensional exploration of sculptural possibilities and sculptural production, as well as what curator Suzanne Cotter describes as the “intensely spatial nature of Monir’s artistic thinking.”

The work of MONIR SHAHROUDY FARMANFARMAIAN (b. Qazvin, Iran, 1924 - d. 2019) has been exhibited internationally beginning in the 1960’s. Her forthcoming solo exhibition at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA will open in 2022. Recent solo exhibitions include Sunset Sunrise, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland (2018), which travelled to Sharjah Art Foundation, United Arab Emirates (2019); Mirror Variations: The Art of Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Grand Rapids Art Museum, MI (2018); Lineages, Savannah College of Art and Design Museum of Art, Savannah, GA (2017); Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Infinite Possibility. Mirror Works and Drawings, 1974-2014, Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, Portugal (2014), which travelled to Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY (2015); and Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA (2017); Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Convertibles and Polygons, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX (2013); and Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Mirror Mosaics, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom (2007).

Her work is held in the permanent collections of major institutions worldwide, including the Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College, Winter Park, FL; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA; the Barry Art Museum, Norfolk, VA; Grand Rapids Museum of Art, Grand Rapids, MI; Guggenheim Museum, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris, France; M+ Museum, Hong Kong; McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Monir Museum, Negarestan Museum Park Gardens, Tehran, Iran; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Museum of Modern Art, Tehran, Iran; Niavaran Cultural Center, Tehran, Iran; Queensland Gallery of Contemporary Art, Queensland, Australia; Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom; Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Tehran, Iran; Toledo Art Museum, Toledo, OH; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom.

JAMES COHAN GALLERY

48 Walker St New York, NY 10013 

291 Grand St New York, NY 10002

www.jamescohan.com

Monir Farmanfarmaian @ High Museum of Art, Atlanta - A Mirror Garden

Monir Farmanfarmaian: A Mirror Garden
High Museum of Art, Atlanta
August 14, 2020 - January 3, 2021 
(dates to be confirmed)

MONIR SHAHROUDY FARMANFARMAIAN

(Iranian, 1924-2019)

Untitled (Muqarnas), 2012

Mirror, reverseglass painting, plaster on wood

High Museum of Art, purchase with funds from

the Farideh & Al Azadi Foundation, 2019.174

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian (1924-2019) was one of Iran’s most celebrated and revered visual artists, known internationally for her geometric mirror sculptures that combined the mathematical order and beauty of ancient Persian architectural motifs with the forms and patterns of hard-edged, postwar abstraction. The High Museum of Art will present the first posthumous exhibition of her work in an American museum with “Monir Farmanfarmaian: A Mirror Garden”.

The exhibition was inspired by the High’s 2019 acquisition of Monir Farmanfarmaian’s cut-mirror sculpture titled “Untitled (Muqarnas)” (2012) as well as her 2014 drawing “Untitled (Circles and Squares).” Muqarnas was acquired with funds from the Farideh & Al Azadi Foundation as part of a significant gift to The Woodruff Arts Center, of which the High is an arts partner, to present work by Persian artists and to engage the Persian community.

“We are honored to present Farmanfarmaian’s work at the High and to recognize her importance as a singular creative force,” said Michael Rooks, the High’s Wieland Family curator of modern and contemporary art. “For generations of artists in post-revolution Iran, Farmanfarmaian represents the paradigm of an independent artist whose work was unfettered by the histories and customs of its context but existed in conversation with contemporary art practices across cultures. At the same time her work reflects a deep understanding and reverence for Iranian culture.”

The exhibition’s title is borrowed from Monir Farmanfarmaian’s 2007 memoir, co-authored by Zara Houshmand, which evokes the visual splendor of the artist’s mirror-mosaic sculptures. Objects on view will include a selection of sculptures, drawings, textiles and collages spanning four decades, from 1976 to 2019. Drawings from the late 1970s such as “Untitled” (1977), featuring a composition based on the hexagon, provide examples of her early investigations of geometric form and pattern, while later drawings such as the High’s “Untitled (Circles and Squares)” (2014) are painstakingly crafted, demonstrating the artist’s conceptual and technical virtuosity and her use of repetition and pattern.

Sculptures from 2009 to 2019 unite fragments of mirror and colorful painted glass in resplendent mosaic patterns. “Untitled (Muqarnas)” (2012) is composed of identically opposite, wing-like forms. The title refers to the honeycombed ceilings in Persian shrines and palaces while also recalling the wings of the Faravahar, an ancient Zoroastrian symbol tied to Persian cultural identity. Another work, titled “Gabbeh” (2009), features a triangular pattern formed by overlapping hexagons that serves as the foundation for an irregular combination of colorful polygons, arcs and diagonals. Its title refers to a type of Persian carpet produced by Nomadic weavers. The exhibition also includes four silk carpets designed by Monir Farmanfarmaian.

Monir Farmanfarmian often grouped her work in series she called “families,” suggesting a familial affinity of form, dimensionality or structure between works in each group. The exhibition will include several examples of these “families,” most notably all eight members of “Third Family,” which is based on the first eight regular polygons in Euclidian geometry. Shown together, the entire group of works will demonstrate the complete progression of the artist’s concept for the series. Another special feature of the exhibition includes two works from the artist’s “Convertible” series in which component parts of the sculpture may be rearranged in multiple configurations demonstrating the fluidity of geometric structure.

The galleries will also feature several intimately scaled collaged boxes that the artist called “Heartache Boxes,” which were produced after the death of her husband Abol-Bashar Farmanfarmaian in 1991. Recalling Joseph Cornell’s boxes arranged with objects related to longing, memory and dreams, as well as the art of Persian miniature painting, these elaborately crafted assemblages are arranged with prints, photographs and a variety of objects that refer to the artist’s life and career, including images of her early work and references to her “lost” life in Tehran before the Islamic Revolution.

The exhibition will be presented on the second level of the High’s Anne Cox Chambers Wing.

Born in Qazvin, Iran, in 1924, MONIR FARMANFARMAIAN studied at the College of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran in the early 1940s, later traveling to New York to further her education. There she attended Parsons School of Design, Cornell University and the Arts Student League. In New York, Monir Farmanfarmaian absorbed the development of geometric abstraction and observed its burgeoning permutations in contemporary art. Her community of artist friends and colleagues there included Milton Avery, Alexander Calder, Joan Mitchell, Louise Nevelson, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol and others. These experiences, combined with her deep knowledge of Iranian arts and crafts, resulted in her personal vision for a truly global modernity.

Following her marriage in 1957, the artist returned to Iran, where she began to study, collect and preserve the traditional decorative arts of her home country. However, the 1979 Islamic Revolution led Monir Farmanfarmaian and her family back to New York, where they would remain in exile for the next 26 years. In 2004, Monir Farmanfarmaian moved back to Tehran, reestablishing a studio where she worked with some of the same craftsmen she had known in the 1970s.

The artist first received significant attention in 1958, when she was awarded a gold medal for her work in the Iranian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, leading to exhibitions in Tehran, Paris and New York. Since then, her work has been shown at major institutions and in exhibitions worldwide. Most recently, major retrospective exhibitions of her work have been presented by the Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE; the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; the Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the Fundação de Serralves, Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto.

Farmanfarmaian’s work is included in important public collections around the world including the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; the Museum of Modern Art, Tehran; Tate Modern, London; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

She is the subject of the monograph “Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Cosmic Geometry,” edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist, and is the co-author of her autobiography, “A Mirror Garden” (Knopf, 2007). In December 2017, the Monir Museum opened in Tehran, the only museum dedicated to a single female artist in Iran.

HIGH MUSEUM OF ART
1280 Peachtree St NE, Atlanta, GA 30309
www.high.org

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian @ The Third Line, Dubai - The Breeze at Dawn Has Secrets to Tell You

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian

The Breeze at Dawn Has Secrets to Tell You

The Third Line, Dubai

September 24 – November 3, 2018

The Third Line presents The Breeze at Dawn Has Secrets to Tell You, a solo exhibition featuring MONIR SHAHROUDY FARMANFARMAIAN’s most recent body of work. While they continue to draw from Islamic cosmology, mathematics and Sufi mystic philosophies, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian’s mixed-media installations define a new step in the artist’s ever-evolving practice as she for the first time experiments with kinetic art.

The Breeze at Dawn Has Secrets to Tell You

Don't go back to sleep!

You must ask for what you really want.

Don't go back to sleep!

People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch,

The door is round and open

Don't go back to sleep!

Excerpted from a poem by 13th century Sufi poet Rumi, The Breeze at Dawn Has Secrets to Tell You stands as a reminder that the changes we strive for lie within our hands, as thresholds that demand to be crossed, opportunities to be seized.

Reminiscent of such gates, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian’s mirror mosaic representations of geometrical figures are framed by curtains of reverse-painted plexiglass strands that one imagines could oscillate in the wind. Suspended from the frame of several works are pendants that mirror the geometrical shapes of the works from which they hang. Drawn from Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian’s childhood memories of her nanny wearing a microscopic Quran page medallion pinned to her sleeve, these adornments remind us of the sacred geometry principles that have been at the core of the artist’s practice for the past five decades. Each of the shapes possesses mathematical attributes and consequently, its own meaning. Thus, the triangle becomes a symbol of harmony representing the soul and the three forms of action: mental, physical and verbal, while the square is synonymous with stability, the four cardinal points and the four seasons.

To take a closer look at the reflective surfaces that host the various geometrical shapes is to realize that the mirror has been shattered in what seems like the ultimate gesture materializing both Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian’s avant-garde practice and her forever young and playful spirit. The fragmented planes also hint at the historical origins of the mirror mosaics used in Iranian architecture: in the 18th century, mirrors imported from Europe that arrived broken were salvaged by local craftsmen, who reassembled cracked elements into patterns imitating traditional Iranian tiles.

Also on display will be 2018 iterations of Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian’s famed 1970s Mirror Ball works—spherical sculptures comprising myriads of hand-cut mirror elements inspired by the sight of children playing football in the streets of Tehran.

In conjunction with the exhibition, The Third Line screens Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, a documentary that explores the artist’s life and practice and uncovers how she came to be one of the most influential and innovative practitioners in the Middle East. Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian is directed by Bahman Kiarostami and produced by Leyla Fakhr.

MONIR SHAHROUDY FARMANFARMAIAN - BIOGRAPHY

Born in Qazvin, Iran in 1924, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian’s distinguished career has spanned more than five decades. Incorporating traditional reverse glass painting, mirror mosaics and principles of Islamic geometry with a modern sensibility, her sculptures and installations defy easy categorization.

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian attended the Fine Arts College of Tehran before becoming one of the first Iranian students to study in the United States after World War II. She graduated from Parsons School of Design in 1949 and then became a Member of the New York Art Students' League (1950-53). Engulfed in the epicenter of the modern art world, it was here that she worked alongside many iconic contemporary American artists including Jackson Pollock, Frank Stella, Louise Nevelson and Andy Warhol, all who had an influence on her work.

In August 2018, a major solo exhibition featuring over 70 works opened at the Irish Museum of Modern Art and will travel to the Sharjah Art Foundation in 2019.

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian’s work is housed in several major public collections including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Metropolitan Museum, New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Jameel Collection, London; Tate Modern, London; The Queensland Art Gallery, Australia; The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Iran; Swisscorp Bank, Switzerland; The Sharjah Art Foundation, United Arab Emirates; and the School of Law at Columbia University, United States.

THE THIRD LINE

www.thethirdline.com

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Infinite Possibility. Mirror Works and Drawings 1974–2014 at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NYC

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Infinite Possibility. Mirror Works and Drawings 1974-2014 

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NYC 
March 13 - June 3, 2015

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum will present the first comprehensive exhibition in the United States of the celebrated Iranian artist Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian (b. 1924). In recognition of a lengthy career, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Infinite Possibility. Mirror Works and Drawings 1974–2014 focuses on the faceted mirror sculptures and corresponding geometric drawings Monir has produced over the past forty years. The majority of the selected works in this exhibition are from the artist’s own collection, and many have never been shown to the public.

MONIR SHAROUDY FARMANFARMAIAN 

Untitled, 2012. 

Felt-tip pen on paper, 70 x 100 cm. 

Collection of the artist, courtesy The Third Line, Dubai 

© Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian. 

Photo: Courtesy of the artist and The Third Line, Dubai

Monir’s rich body of work references Persian architectural and decorative tradition, the mathematical basis of geometric forms in Islamic pattern, and Sufi cosmology. When considered along with the Guggenheim’s historical commitment to abstraction and internationalism, the exhibition offers a timely opportunity to examine Monir’s rich body of work in its own right and as part of an increasingly transnational perspective on artistic production and its reception.

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Infinite Possibility. Mirror Works and Drawings 1974–2014 is organized by the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, Portugal, where it was on view in fall 2014 before traveling to New York. The exhibition is curated by Suzanne Cotter, Director, Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, and former Curator, Abu Dhabi Project, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, with assistance from Karole Vail, Associate Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, for its New York presentation.

The Leadership Committee for Infinite Possibility is gratefully acknowledged for its support, with special thanks to Simin N. Allison, Maryam Eisler, The Soudavar Memorial Foundation, Mohammed Afkhami, Patricia and Alexander Farman-Farmaian, Haines Gallery, Yasmine Nainzadeh and Sara Nainzadeh, Nazgol and Kambiz Shahbazi, and The Third Line.

MONIR SHAROUDY FARMANFARMAIAN

Mirror Ball, 1973

Mirror on plaster ball, 19 x 19 x 19 cm

Collection of Nima Isham, Montana

© Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian

Photo: Filipe Braga 

© Fundação de Serralves–Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Infinite Possibility. Mirror Works and Drawings 1974–2014 includes early wood, plaster, and mirror reliefs, a series of large-scale geometric mirror sculptures, and an impressive body of works on paper, focusing on a sculptural and graphic oeuvre developed over a period of more than forty years. The presentation reveals how the compositional principles used by the artist during this period were translated into large-scale commissions, including a series of etched glass doors created for a New York townhouse in the early 1980s. A selection of previously unseen abstract works on paper produced between 1974 and 2014 reveals the central role of drawing as a conceptual foundation for Monir’s sculptural practice. The artist’s ambitious mirror sculptures, known as “geometric families,” which she produced in the last decade since reinstating her studio in Tehran, will also be on view. Monir’s prolific body of work is characterized by the merging of visual and spatial experience and a distinctive approach to abstraction, coupled with the aesthetic tradition of Islamic architecture and decoration, allowing for, in the artist’s own words, “infinite possibility.”

MONIR SHAROUDY FARMANFARMAIAN 

Untitled, 1980

Felt-tip pen and colored pencil on paper, 63 x 44.5 cm

Collection of the artist

© Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian

Photo: Courtesy of the artist

Born in Qazvin, Iran, in 1924, MONIR SHAROUDY FARMANFARMAIAN attended the Fine Arts College of Tehran before moving to New York in 1945, where she studied at Cornell University and at Parsons School of Design and worked as a freelance illustrator for Vogue and as a graphic designer. These formative years in New York served as a sort of apprenticeship for Monir, who spent time alongside fellow artists Milton Avery, Willem de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, Louise Nevelson, Barnett Newman, and later Andy Warhol, among others. Notably, during her time in New York, Monir visited the Guggenheim in its founding locations and was present at the 1956 groundbreaking for the Frank Lloyd Wright–designed museum building on Fifth Avenue. She returned to Iran in 1957 and journeyed across the country, further developing her artistic sensibility through encounters with traditional craftsmanship. Indigenous art forms such as Turkoman jewelry and clothing, coffee house paintings (a popular form of Iranian narrative paintings), and the technique of reverse-glass painting influenced her work, resulting in a productive period of artistic discovery and breakthrough that culminated in a series of commissions in Iran and exhibitions in Europe and the United States, including presentations at Galerie Denise René in Paris and New York. The Islamic Revolution in 1979 marked the beginning of Monir’s twenty-six-year exile in New York, during which she focused on drawing, collage, and a few commissions, and also returned to carpet and textile design. In 2004, when she finally returned to Iran, she reestablished her studio there and resumed working with some of the same craftsmen she had collaborated with in the 1970s.

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian in her studio working on Heptagon Star, Tehran, 1975

Photo: Courtesy of the artist and The Third Line, Dubai

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Italian Institute, Tehran (1968); Jack Kaplan Gallery, New York (1975); the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. (1976); the Iran American Society, Tehran (1976); Galerie Denise René, New York and Paris (1977); the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2007); and Leighton House Museum, London (2008). Her work has also been featured in a number of group exhibitions, including the first Tehran Biennial (1958); the Venice Biennale (1958, 1964, 1966, and 2009); Gold, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1978–79); Living Traditions: Contemporary Art from Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan, Queen’s Palace, Bagh-e Babur, Kabul (2008); The Power of Ornament, Lower Belvedere, Orangery, Vienna (2009); Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane (2009–10); There is always a cup of sea to sail in, São Paulo Biennial (2010); and Jef Guys/Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: The world as seen through a Pelican in Plexi, Wiels, Brussels (2013).

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian’s works are found in numerous public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; Tate, London; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Several of the artist’s extant works from the 1970s are in the collection of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. Major commissions include installations at King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Dag Hammarskjöld Tower in New York, and the Niavaran Cultural Center in Tehran

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY

www.guggenheim.org