ART-PRESENTATION: Kamrooz Aram & Iman Issa-Lives of Forms
The two-person exhibition “Lives of Forms” focuses on Kamrooz Aram/s and Iman Issa’s explorations of the political significance of aesthetic forms. Kamrooz Aram’s unique approach to painting extends beyond the canvas and onto the gallery walls, while Iman Issa reimagines existing artworks and monuments. In her sculptural displays she introduces alternative forms to evoke the same ideas, public figures, and historical events as those portrayed in the original works she references.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Z33 House for Contemporary Art
Iman Issa is an artist based in Berlin. Since 2020 she has been Professor of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Her work is driven by her intense interest in history and her insistence on questioning the preconceptions that govern knowledge. She asks how we come to know a place, an object, or a piece of history; how memory intersects with understanding; and how imagination can help us to radically re-envision what we think we know. “In art” Issa has said, “you can show someone a chair and say it’s a table, and they might believe you. The magic is in the possibility that the chair is both unique to itself and that it can signal a lot more besides”. Iman Issa reimagines existing artworks and monuments. In her sculptural displays she introduces alternative forms to evoke the same ideas, public figures, and historical events as those portrayed in the original works she references. Stripped of recognizable details, her versions look nothing like the originals. In this way, she directs the viewer’s attention away from questions of provenance and towards the relationship between form and subject matter. Whereas the form of an artwork or monument normally remains unchanged over time, its meaning changes as a result of social developments. Issa’s works seek new forms for these changing meanings.
Kamrooz Aram’s work is rooted in the history and practice of painting, which he expands to include collage, photography, sculptural works and exhibition design. His work engages the complicated relationship between Modernism and ornament, often with reference to non-western ornamental art, which he sees as a parallel to painting. Aram’s work sets out to renegotiate the art historical hierarchy that places these ornamental artforms in a category of value beneath fine art.vAram’s paintings explore the ornamental potential in abstraction, while challenging the notion of ornament as superfluous form. His sculptural works evoke the display strategies of museums, especially those which house so called decorative arts. His recent exhibitions often function as works in their own right. Combining painting, sculpture, collage and exhibition design, he creates an interdependence between object and display, in an effort to reveal the significance of design and architecture in affecting the interpretation of art objects. For the exhibition Kamrooz Aram’s unique approach to painting extends beyond the canvas and onto the gallery walls, integrating exhibition design with the artworks on display. In his work, he places ornament at the center of modern painting, thus challenging eurocentric versions of art history in which ornamental art is often seen as a lesser art form. Aram’s compositions reveal surprising parallels between ornamental art and geometric abstract painting. By creating interdependencies between paintings, displayed objects and mechanisms of display, he brings attention to the importance of the design and architecture of museums in shaping the way we look at art.
Photo: Kamrooz Aram & Iman Issa, Lives of Forms, exhibition view Z33 House for Contemporary Art-Hasselt, 2021, Courtesy Z33 House for Contemporary Art
Info: Curators: Silvia Franceschini & Tim Roerig, Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture, Bonnefantenstraat 1, Hasselt, Belgium, Duration: 1/5-1/8/2021, Days & Hours: Mon & Wed-Fri 11:00-18”00, Sat-Sun 10:00-18:00, www.z33.be
