Shirana Shahbazi (; born 1974) is an Iranian-born photographer who now lives in Switzerland. Her work includes installations and large prints of conceptual photography.

Biography

Born in Tehran, Shahbazi moved to Germany in 1985, studying photography and design at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in

Dortmund Dortmund (; Westphalian nds, Düörpm ; la, Tremonia) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the eighth-largest city of Germany, with a population of 588,250 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the la ...

from 1995 to 1997. From 1997 to 2000, Shahbazi attended the

Zurich University of the Arts Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK, german: Zürcher Hochschule der Künste) has approximately 2,500 students, which makes it the largest arts university in Switzerland. The university was established in 2007, following the merger between Zurich' ...

, in Switzerland, specializing in photography. She currently lives and works in Zurich. Her first successful sequence ''Goftare Nik/Good Words'' of color photographs taken in Iran (published as a book in 2001 with Hatje Cantz) led to the Citibank Private Bank Photography Prize in 2002. In 2002, she presented a series of images of Switzerland titled ''The Garden''. At the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

in 2003, she presented ''The Annunciation'', an enormous installation in the central pavilion with murals by Iranian painters based on her photographs and a ceiling of lilies. She is the recipient of 2019

Prix Meret Oppenheim The Swiss Art Awards, also named the Federal Art Competition, are recognitions that are awarded by the Federal Office of Culture (FOC) in the name of the Confederation. History The Swiss Art Awards stem from the oldest and most important measur ...

Work

Presented as an installation, her ''Meanwhile'' series (2007), combines everyday images of landscapes, portraits and still lifes from her world travels, one of her images expanded to poster size by an Iranian billboard artist. Other photographs are reproduced as paintings or even carpets.Olivia Qusaibaty, "Shirana Shahbazi: Meanwhile"
Art It. Retrieved 23 March 2013. The exhibition ''Then Again'' (2012) at the

Fotomuseum Winterthur Fotomuseum Winterthur is a museum of photography in Winterthur, Switzerland. History The museum was founded in 1993 and is dedicated to photography as art form and document, and as a representation of reality. Fotomuseum Winterthur is an art g ...

presents 18 large-format works demonstrating how a photograph can be transformed from a depiction of reality into a geometric abstraction. As discussed by Adam Jasper's review in Artforum, Shahbazi's photographs are true abstractions in that they are less a representational photograph than they are actual objects themselves, highly constructed. Continuing to work in analog photographic methods, some of Shabazi's newest works exist as geometric shapes captured on polished mirrors with thin films of color.

Exhibitions

Shahbazi's work has been widely exhibited all over the world. In 2007, Shabhazi exhibited ''Meanwhile'' at the

Swiss Institute Swiss Institute / Contemporary Art New York (SI) is an independent non-profit contemporary art organization founded in 1986. SI is located at 38 St Marks Pl, the corner of Second Avenue and St Marks Place in the East Village neighborhood of Manhatt ...

in New York City and at the

Barbican Art Gallery The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London and the largest of its kind in Europe. The centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhibi ...

London, in 2008. Shahbazi is represented by Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich. The exhibition ''Monstera'' at

Kunsthalle Bern The Kunsthalle Bern is a ''Kunsthalle'' (art exposition hall) on the Helvetiaplatz in Bern, Switzerland. It was built in 1917–1918 by the Kunsthalle Bern Association and opened on October 5, 1918. Since then, it has been the site of numerous e ...

in 2014 was curated by Fabrice Stroun and Tenzing Barshee. The artist has been exhibiting regularly since 1997, with her most recent solo exhibition at Kunsthaus Hamburg, in Germany in 2018. Numerous photographs are held in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Bibliography

*Shahbazi, Shirana (2007)
Meanwhile
JRP Ringier. * * *Shahbazi, Shirana (2017).
Shirana Shahbazi : first things first
'. Sternberg Press.

References

External links