Sara Ghazi Asadollahi: Concrete Poetry

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S A R A G HA Z I A S A DO LL A HI Concrete Poetry

bruno david gallery

Sara Ghazi Asadollahi Concrete Poetry

February 16 - April 7, 2018 Bruno David Gallery 7513 Forsyth Boulevard Saint Louis, Missouri 63105, U.S.A. info@brunodavidgallery.com www.brunodavidgallery.com Founder/Director: Bruno L. David This catalogue was published in conjunction with the online exhibition “Sara Ghazi Asadollahi: Concrete Poetry” at Bruno David Gallery.

Editor: Bruno L. David Catalogue Designer: Lauren R. Mann Designer Assistant: Claudia R. David Printed in USA All works courtesy of Sara Ghazi Asadollahi and Bruno David Gallery Photographs by Sara Ghazi Asadollahi Cover image: Mid December, 2017. Oil on canvas, 16 x 20 in. (40.6 x 50.8 cm) First Edition Copyright ©2018 Sara Ghazi Asadollahi and Bruno David Gallery All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of Bruno David Gallery

CONTENTS AFTERWORD

BY BRUNO L. DAVID CHECKLIST AND IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION

AFTERWORD

BY BRUNO L. DAVID

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I am pleased to present, Concrete Poetry an exhibition by Sara Ghazi Asadollahi. This is Asadollahi’s first exhibition with the gallery.

The exhibition Concrete Poetry features a new series of works completed in early 2018. The main concept of Sara Ghazi Asadollahi work is ruins or more specifically abandoned places. Ruins as palimpsests of a past civilization, disintegrated structures often created by war. Ruins may also be abandoned places that signal absence and presence simultaneously: the intersection of the visible and invisible. Fragmented and decayed, no longer serving their original purposes, they point to a loss and an invisible significance.

Though they are no longer what they once were, the visible presence of the ruins also points to a kind of endurance.

The theme of dystopia is important to her work; that theme relates to an undesirable or frightening place that appears in fictional works, particularly those set in the future. Dystopias are often categorized by dehumanization, environmental disaster, and/or other aspects of cataclysmic decline. From both literary and historical viewpoints, dystopia is often identified with the failed utopian vision of 20th-century totalitarianism.

Her relationship to space and architecture emanates from her cultural background as an artist who has lived in a country bearing the traces of war. Iran was still emerging from the 1979 revolution when the Iran-Iraq war erupted in 1980 and lasted until 1988. The effects of war are still reflected in ruined houses and abandoned places. Witnessing the ramifications of war around the city, she has pondered their relationship to the city landscape. Tehran is a developing city that expands the gap between the past and present. The relationship plays a fundamental role in the integration of abandoned places as a concept in her work. She categorizes her experience into three different stages: The Imaginary, The Real, and The Fiction/Fictional. Each has its own special character, yet still impacts her work. Her work always accompanies by interdisciplinary researches on literature, philosophy, architecture, and cinema.

Sara Ghazi Asadollahi is an Iranian-born St. Louis-based artist. She holds her B.A. and M.A. in Iran and an M.F.A. degree from the Sam Fox School of Visual Arts & Design, Washington University in Saint Louis.

Support for the creation of significant new works of art has been the core to the mission and program of the Bruno David Gallery since its founding in 2005. I am deeply grateful to Lauren R. Mann, who gave much time, talent, and expertise to the production of this catalogue. Invaluable gallery staff support for the exhibition was provided by Tommy Fruhauf, Peter Finley, Eliza Reinhardt, Lauren R. Mann, Haleigh Givens, and Ruoyi Gan.

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CHECKLIST & IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION

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Mid December 2017 Oil on canvas 16 x 20 inches (40.6 x 50.8 cm)

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Mid December (detail)

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Autumn 2017 Oil on canvas 16 x 20 inches (40.6 x 50.8 cm)

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Autumn (detail)

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Like July 2017 Oil on canvas 16 x 20 inches (40.6 x 50.8 cm)

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Like July (detail)

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Early Spring 2017 Oil on canvas 16 x 20 inches (40.6 x 50.8 cm)

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Early Spring (detail)

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Mid Jan 2017 Oil on canvas 16 x 20 inches (40.6 x 50.8 cm)

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Maybe Summer 2017 Oil on canvas 16 x 20 inches (40.6 x 50.8 cm)

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Maybe Summer (detail)

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Early in the Morning 2018 Oil on canvas 16 x 20 inches (40.6 x 50.8 cm)

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Early in the Morning (detail)

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Late March 2018 Oil on canvas 16 x 20 inches (40.6 x 50.8 cm)

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Late March (detail)

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Maybe Winter 2017 Oil on canvas 16 x 20 inches (40.6 x 50.8 cm)

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Maybe Winter (detail)

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Winter 2017 Oil on canvas 16 x 20 inches (40.6 x 50.8 cm)

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Winter (detail)

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brunodavidgallery.com brunodavidprojects.com @bdavidgallery #BrunoDavidGallery #SaraGhaziAsadollahi #AbandonedPlaces #ConcretePoetry #GoSeeArt #ArtExhibition #ArtPublication #ArtBook #ArtCatalog instagram.com/brunodavidgallery/ facebook.com/bruno.david.gallery twitter.com/bdavidgallery goodartnews.com/

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ARTISTS REPRESENTED Sara Ghazi Asadollahi Laura Beard Heather Bennett Lisa K. Blatt Michael Byron Bunny Burson Judy Child Carmon Colangelo Alex Couwenberg Terry James Conrad Jill Downen Damon Freed

Yvette Drury Dubinsky Douglass Freed Richard Hull Kelley Johnson Chris Kahler Leslie Laskey Justin Henry Miller James Austin Murray Yvonne Osei Patricia Olynyk

Charles P. Reay Daniel Raedeke Tom Reed Frank Schwaiger Charles Schwall Christina Shmigel Thomas Sleet Buzz Spector Monika Wulfers

Gary Passanise

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