ART CITIES:Dubai-Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian

The Iranian artist Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian is well known for her dazzling approach to geometric abstraction, primarily in the mirror reliefs and drawings she has been making since the ‘70s that derive from ornamental elements in traditional Islamic architecture. She pairs the practice of decoration with inspiration from Western forms to exploit new forms, materials, shapes and colours, while simultaneously incorporating the symbolic nature of the mirror, as a reflection of the self.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: The Third Line Archive

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian was born in Qazvin, Iran, in 1924, where she studied Fine Arts at the Tehran University. She was one of the first Iranian students to travel to the USA after WW II where she completed her studies at Cornell University and Parsons School of Design. After formative years in New York from 1945 to 1957, during which she met artists Milton Avery, Willem de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, Louise Nevelson, Barnett Newman, and later Andy Warhol among others, Monir returned to Iran. There, she further developed her artistic sensibility through encounters with traditional craftsmanship, indigenous art forms such as Turkoman jewelry and clothing, coffee house paintings and the technique of reverse-glass painting, resulting in a period of artistic discovery that culminated in commissions in Iran and exhibitions in Europe and USA The Islamic Revolution in 1979 marked the beginning of Monir’s 26-year exile in New York, during which she focused on drawing, collage, commissions, and carpet & 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. As she said to Lauren O’Neill-Butler, “My work is largely based on geometry, which, as you know, always begins with a single point and can move from there into a circle. Or a point can become three leading to a triangle, or four to a square, five to a pentagon, hexagon, octagon, and so on—it’s endless. I was inspired by the geometry I found in old mosques with their tile, metal, wood, and plaster work”. Her exhibition “Infinite Geometry” marks the opening of thenew Gallery space in Alserkal Avenue – Dubai by The Third Line. The exhibition reflects upon the different facets and materials of her geometric practice and features a range of drawings, carpets, and mirror works, showing the depth of her conceptual consideration of medium throughout her career. The drawings include earlier works from the ‘90s that were produced while Monir was in exile in New York. Examples of the earlier works from the ’90s are more freehand and whimsical in nature, many of them became prototypes for carpets that were made by hand in Tabriz and Bijar, Iran. These wool and naturally dyed silk carpets present a unique insight into Monir’s experiments in material that have not been showcased before. In contrast, the more recent felt tip marker and pen drawings on paper are in tightly calculated geometrical compositions, with a multitude of roulette curves-a direction that has also evolved in her mirror works.

Info: The Third Line, Al Quoz 1, Dubai, Duration: 5-30/1/15, Days & Hours: Sat-Thu 10:00-19:00, www.thethirdline.com