New East window of St Martin's in the Fields - geograph

Shirazeh Houshiary (born 15 January 1955) is an Iranian-born English

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...

ist, and

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

. She lives and works in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

Life and work

Shirazeh Houshiary was born on 15 January 1955 in

Shiraz Shiraz (; fa, شیراز, Širâz ) is the List of largest cities of Iran, fifth-most-populous city of Iran and the capital of Fars province, Fars Province, which has been historically known as Pars (Sasanian province), Pars () and Persis. As o ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. She left her native country of Iran in 1973. Houshiary attended

Chelsea School of Art Chelsea College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London based in London, United Kingdom, and is a leading British art and design institution with an international reputation. It offers further and higher educat ...

in London, from 1976 to 1979. She was a

Cardiff College of Art Cardiff School of Art & Design (CSAD) is one of the five schools that comprise Cardiff Metropolitan University. It originated as the Cardiff School of Art in 1865. History Cardiff School of Art & Design opened in 1865 as the Cardiff School of S ...

junior fellow, from 1979 to 1980. Houshiary was identified with other young sculptors of her generation such as Richard Deacon and

Anish Kapoor Sir Anish Mikhail Kapoor (born 12 March 1954) is a British-Indian sculptor specializing in installation art and conceptual art. Born in Mumbai, Kapoor attended the elite all-boys Indian boarding school The Doon School, before moving to the UK ...

, but her work was distinct from theirs in the strong Persian influence which it displayed, though sharing with Kapoor a spiritual concern. Her ideology draws on

Sufi Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, ...

mystical doctrine and

Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī ( fa, جلال‌الدین محمد رومی), also known as Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī (), Mevlânâ/Mawlānā ( fa, مولانا, lit= our master) and Mevlevî/Mawlawī ( fa, مولوی, lit= my ma ...

, a Persian mystic and poet from the 13th century. She was a nominee for the 1994

Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...

. In 2008, the

St Martin-in-the-Fields Church St Martin-in-the-Fields is a Church of England parish church at the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, London. It is dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours. There has been a church on the site since at least the mediev ...

in London unveiled a commission by Shirazeh Houshiary and Pip Horne for the East Window. In 2005,

Creative Time Creative Time is a New York-based nonprofit arts organization. It was founded in 1974 to support the creation of innovative, site-specific, socially engaged artworks in the public realm, particularly in vacant spaces of historical and architectura ...

commissioned Houshiary and Pip Horne for their Creative Time Art on the Plaza series where the monumental ''Breath'' tower was exhibited in New York City. Her work was also included in Feri Daftari's exhibitio
Without Boundary: Seventeen Ways of Looking
at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

in 2006 and the 17th

Biennale of Sydney The Biennale of Sydney is an international festival of contemporary art, held every two years in Sydney, Australia. It is a large and well-attended contemporary visual arts event in the country. Alongside the Venice and São Paulo biennales and ...

in 2010. In 2005 (Veil), 2008 (Shroud), 2011 (Dust), and 2019 (A Cup and a Rose) Houshiary worked with animator Mark Hatchard of Hotbox Studios to create animations for gallery installations at the Lehmann Maupin Gallery in New York and the

Lisson Gallery Lisson Gallery is a contemporary art gallery with locations in London and New York, founded by Nicholas Logsdail in 1967. The gallery represents over 50 artists such as Art & Language, Ryan Gander, Carmen Herrera, Richard Long, John Latham, Sol ...

in London. Houshiary's work is included in numerous public and private collections including the

(MoMA), the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

, and the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

Select solo exhibitions: * ''Shirazeh Houshiary'', Lisson Gallery, London (1984) * ''Shirazeh Houshiary'', Museum of Modern Art, Oxford & Centre d'Art Contemporain, Geneve (1988) * ''Dancing Around My Ghost'', Camden Arts Centre, London (1988) * ''Turning Around the Centre'', University Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst (1993) * ''Conversation with Shirazeh Houshiary and Stella Santacatterina'', published on the occasion of an exhibition held at the Lisson Gallery, London, (reprinted from ''Third Text'', no. 27) (1994) * ''Isthmus: Shirazeh Houshiary'' (Grenoble: Magasin-Centre National d'Art Contemporain de Grenoble; London: the British Council) (1995)

Group exhibitions

Select group exhibitions: * ''New Art at the Tate Gallery'', Tate Gallery, London (1983) * ''The Sculpture Show, Hayward and Serpentine Galleries'', London (1983) * ''The British Art Show,'' Art Council Touring Exhibition (1984) * ''The British Show'', Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (1985) * ''Magiciens de la Terre'', Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1989) * ''In Site: New British Sculpture'', Museet for Samtidskunst, Oslo (1993) * ''Recent British Sculpture'', City Museum and Art Gallery, Derby (1993) * ''The Turner Prize'', Tate Gallery, London (1994) * ''Sculptors' Drawings Presented by the Weltkunst Foundation'' (1994) * ''Contemporary British Art in Print'', Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh (1995)

Notes and references

External links