Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now

February 8 - March 28, 2020 Diane Rosenstein Gallery 831 N. Highland Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90038

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

Farrah Karapetian Big Dream, 2020 Unique chromogenic photograph 114 x 124 inches FKA204

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

Farrah Karapetian La Strada Vecchia, 2020 Unique chromogenic photograph and paint 114 1/4 x 199 inches FKA205

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

Farrah Karapetian The Helpers, 2020 Unique chromogenic photograph 95 x 99 inches FKA203

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

Farrah Karapetian The Gesture of Memory, 2019 Seventeen unique silver gelatin photographs 8 x 10 inches each FKA191

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

Farrah Karapetian Child’s Pose, 2020 Plaster, MDF, organza, and unique chromogenic photograph 420 x 30 x 1.5 inches FKA211

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

Farrah Karapetian Organ, 2020 Eight aluminum and LED lights Dims variable FKA209

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

Farrah Karapetian The Shortest Prayer, 2020 Unique chromogenic photogram 25.5 x 30 inches FKA212

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

Farrah Karapetian Phone Call 2, 2019 Unique silver gelatin photograph 24 x 20 inches FKA188

Phone Call 3, 2019 Unique silver gelatin photograph 24 x 20 inches FKA189

Phone Call 4, 2019 Unique silver gelatin photograph 24 x 20 inches FKA190

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

Farrah Karapetian The Gesture of Wishing, 2019 Pigment print on fiber-based paper 24 x 77 3/8 inches Edition of 3 (+1AP FKA193

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

Farrah Karapetian Double Clutching, 2019 Walnut, aluminum and two metronome pendulums 11 x 6.5 x 5.5 inches Edition of 3 (+1AP FKA208

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

Farrah Karapetian Step Right Up, 2020 Steel, wheelchair wheels, paint 95 x 56 x 24 inches Edition of 3 (+1AP FKA210

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

Farrah Karapetian Via Dolorosa , 2019 Fourteen unique silver gelatin photographs 24 x 20 inches each FKA192

February 8 - March 28, 2020

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Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Via Dolorosa, 2019, Fourteen unique silver gelatin photographs, 24 x 20 inches each (Installation view)

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

Farrah Karapetian What You Have to Remember, 2020 Neon, poly metal 50 x 2 5/8 inches Edition of 5 (+1AP FKA207

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

Farrah Karapetian Conquered, 2020 Unique chromogenic photograph 24 x 64 inches FKA199

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

Farrah Karapetian Daddy Lessons, 2020 Unique chromogenic photograph 24 x 64 inches FKA198

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

Farrah Karapetian Yes You Can, 2020 Unique chromogenic photograph 24 x 64 inches FKA200

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

Farrah Karapetian Fragment, 2020 Unique chromogenic photograph 33 x 28.75 inches FKA195

Head of a Female Statue, 2020 Unique chromogenic photograph 32 x 27.25 inches FKA197

Zeus and the Thunderbolt, 2020 Unique chromogenic photograph 32 x 27.25 inches FKA196

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

Farrah Karapetian The Choice, 2020 Unique chromogenic photographs (diptych 46 x 60 inches FKA194

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Farrah Karapetian: The Photograph is Always Now DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

Farrah Karapetian Patience 3, 2020 Unique chromogenic photogram 31 x 30 inches FKA215

February 8 - March 28, 2020

Diane, you asked me to make you a show, and I said yes, knowing that the timeline would force the kind of ejaculatory production schedule under the circumstances of which the mind can’t fool the instinct. I’m reminded as I make this work of the show I curated for you a few years ago, Unsparing Quality, which ostensibly traced surrealist routes into contemporary practice, but a corollary of which became the body. Hair, tongues, beards: I remember these parts, revealed by artists parsing their psychologies.

A lot’s been on my mind this year, and I have been making some work to process my relationship to political realities through my body, but the opportunity your space affords is more personal. As you know, my father died last year, and I was very involved in his care, from the moment I arrived back in California after my Fulbright in Russia and transferred my stem cells to him until the moment I jumped into his lap and he died. I drove up and down the Pacific from San Diego, where I had begun to teach, to Los Angeles, listening to music and preparing myself for the vicissitudes of life and death and everything in between. There was something of the savior complex in this, but also something that I’ve now had the chance to work out in the studio: moments that appear still to me photographically for which there is no photograph, truths for which there’s no document, and a body for which there’s no longer any referent.

You know your gallery is set up like a church? Its nave and chapels invite me to unpack some of my experiences in the transreligious language of my family and the transdisciplinary language of my practice. We are Muslim, Jewish, and Christian, and I work on photography in a performative, sculptural, and graphic field. My travels over the last few years have taken me to every village from which my grandparents emigrated, and I bring to this show the memory of kissing Orthodox icons into which thousands of visitors have whispered prayers, the experience of standing behind the Hagia Sophia’s calligraphic roundels and thinking at once of how the architects had managed to hang them and of how badly I used to pronounce the fatihah. In Kiev, visiting Babi Yar, I thought of how the place itself was more of a monument to the Jews murdered there as my grandfather fled than could be any statue. In fact, the land at Babi Yar was to me a photograph: a drawing in light on land pierced by the specificity of what happened there.

Nothing I’m going to give you would easily be categorized as a photograph, but it’s all photographic. It’s all light burned into lens, and essentially relational: how a drive - literal and psychoanalytical - can tell more of a story than I know I have. Basquiat said he crossed out words so people would see them more, and there’s as much obscurity in this work as there is revelation. I promise you it isn’t a show about my dad, or about death, or about the line between reality and its mirrors of memory, vision, and dream. It’s no more an allegory of the cave than is my work usually.

Still, those things gave me permission to work the way I am doing, as have you. Thanks. There’s no other time to do this, and indeed one thing I know better now than I did before is that surrender is the shortest prayer. Fuck it.

Let’s go.

DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

FARRAH KARAPETIAN (USA, b. 1978)

EDUCATION 2008 MFA University of California, Los Angeles, CA 2000 BA Yale University, New Haven, CT SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2022 (Upcoming) Diorama, Eastman Museum, Rochester, NY (with Daguerre) 2020 (Upcoming) Lightguardhouse, Wende Museum, Los Angeles, CA The Photograph is Always Now, Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2018 Collective Memory, Von Lintel Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2017 Building Dwelling Thinking, Von Lintel Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2016 Relief, Von Lintel Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2015 Farrah Karapetian, Danziger Gallery, New York, NY Step Twice, Dodd Galleries, University of Georgia at Athens Stagecraft, Von Lintel Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Prone Position, Solo public project for Freeway Studies #2, Inside the Quad, OTIS Ben Maltz Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (organized by Meg Linton) 2012 Student Body Politic, Vincent Price Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA Representation Cubed, Roberts & Tilton, Los Angeles, CA 2011 Accessory to Protest, LEADAPRON, Los Angeles, CA Shadowbox Kamikaze, PØST, Los Angeles, CA 2010 Broken Windows Theory, Kantor Gallery, New York, NY 2009 Lightyear, Sandroni Rey Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Tragic Muse, Sandroni Rey Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2008 Int./Ext., Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA Shipping Container, Sandroni Rey, Los Angeles, CA SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2019 The Seven Year Itch, Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2018 The Fabric of Felicity, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia 2017 Synthesize, Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville, FL Life During Wartime, Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Light Play: Experiments in Photography, 1970 to the Present, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA 2016 The Surface of Things, Houston Center for Photography, Houston, TX A Matter of Memory, Eastman Museum, Rochester, NY About Time: Photography in a Moment of Change, Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA Collected, Pier 24 Photography, San Francisco, CA Artistic Interpretations of the Cold War, The Wende Museum, Culver City, CA SKIN, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall, Los Angeles, CA 2015 Russian Doll, M+B Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

831 North Highland Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90038

323.462.2790

dianerosenstein.com

DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

2014

2013

2012

2011 2010

2009

2008

2005 2002

The Wall in Our Heads, Haverford College, Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Haverford, PA Summer Exhibition – Gallery Artists, Danziger Gallery, New York, NY Twenty by Sixteen, Morgan Lehman, New York, NY (curated by Geoffrey Young) The Wall in our Heads, Goethe-Institut, Washington, DC (curated by Paul M. Farber) AMBITIOUS, Von Lintel Gallery, Los Angeles, CA The Fifth Wall, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA (curated by Irene Tsatsos) Prep School: Prepper & Survivalist Ideologies and Utopian/Dystopian Visions, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA (curated by Max Presneill) Trouble With the Index, California Museum of Photography at UCR ARTSblock, Riverside, CA (curated by Joanna Szupinska-Myers) Rogue Wave 2013: 15 Artists from Los Angeles, LA Louver, Venice, CA California-Pacific Triennial, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA (curated by Dan Cameron) The Black Mirror, Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (curated by Diane Rosenstein and James Welling) Don’t the Sun Look Angry at Me: Pictures and Objects from Los Angeles Now, Royale Projects, Indian Wells, CA Grey Full, Jeff Bailey Gallery, New York, NY (curated by Geoffrey Young) Major Grey, Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA Session_7_Words, Krabbesholm FourBoxes Gallery, Denmark Border Art Biennial 2010 El Paso Museum of Art and Centro Cultural Paso del Norte, El Paso, TX, and Juárez, MX (juried by Rita Gonzalez and Itala Schmelz) Two Halves, with RJ Messineo, Artist Curated Projects, Los Angeles, CA (organized by Eve Fowler and Lucas Michaels) Lovingly, Rose Peebles, Brand Library, Glendale, CA (curated by Kim Schoen) Open House | State Secrets, with Mitch McEwen and B.E.A.S.T., Superfront, Los Angeles, CA Flirtation, Love, Passion, Hate, Separation, PØST, Los Angeles, CA (curated by Calvin Phelps) Excess | Liquidity, with X | Atelier, Superfront, Los Angeles, CA Session_7_Words, Am Nuden Da, London, England Wall as Canvas I, Wende Museum and Archive of the Cold War, Los Angeles, CA Perception as Object, Monya Rowe Gallery, New York, NY Imaginary Thing, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO (curated by Peter Eleey) LA Confidentiel, Centre d’Art Contemporain, Parc Saint-Léger, France (curated by Sandra Patron and Allyson Spellacy Something About Rooms and Walls, Superfront, Brookly, NY (curated by Mitch Mcewen) Critics’ Picks, Black & White Art Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (curated by Lilly Wei and Megan Heuer) New Photography, SFMOMA Artist's Gallery, San Francisco, CA

AWARDS AND RESIDENCIES 2017-18 Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program Award, Russia 2016 CES ArtsLink Back Apartment Residency, St. Petersburg, Russia 2015 Visiting Artist, Lamar Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia, Athens

831 North Highland Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90038

323.462.2790

dianerosenstein.com

DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

2015 2015 2014 2013 2012 2012 2010 2009 2009 2008 2007 2007 2007 2000 1999 1999

Visiting Artist, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill California Legislature Assembly Certificate of Recognition California Community Foundation Mid-Career Artist Fellowship Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation, ARTS WRITERS GRANT PROGRAM Center for Cultural Innovation, Investing In Artists Grant, Innovation Category Artplace, Funding for Flint Public Art Project, Flint, MI MacDowell Colony, Monadnock, NH, Residency Wende Museum and Archive of the Cold War, Los Angeles, CA, Residency Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant | New York, NY Hoyt Scholarship, Los Angeles, CA Lillian Levinson Scholarship, Los Angeles, CA UCLA Fine Arts Travel Grant, Hiroshima, Japan Corine Tyler Walker Prize, Los Angeles, CA Sudler Fellowship, New Haven, CT Sudler Fellowship, New Haven, CT Richter Fellowship, Spain, Morocco

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 2020 2019

2018 2017

2016

2015

Osberg, Annabelle. “Top Ten 2019 LA Shows.” Artillery, January 7 Osberg, Annabelle. “Artforum Critic's Pick: Review of Collective Memory.” Art Forum, Jan/Feb Mizota, Sharon. "Review of Collective Memory." Los Angeles Times, Feb Dambrot, Shana Nys. "Review of Collective Memory." Art and Cake. Feb Ollman, Leah. “Review of Building Dwelling Thinking.” Photograph Magazine, Jan/Feb Ollman, Leah. “Rematerializing Photography.” Art in America.

Norman, Zachary. “Interview.” Yield Magazine.

Weiskopf, Dan. Constructed: The Contemporary Histroy of the Constructed Image in Photography since 1990. Marni Shindelman (ed.) Routledge / Focal Press.

Knoblauch, Loring. “Highlights from the 2017 AIPAD Photography Show.” Collector Daily, April 3, 2017.

Morse, Rebecca. “LENS: Photography Council 2016 Acquisitions.” LACMA Unframed, July 25, 2016.

Casper, Jim. “Relief: Photograms by Farrah Karapetian.” Lensculture, June 2016.

Stevens, Anise. “Shock of the Old: The Analog Revolution.” Artillery, May/June, 2016.

Zellen, Jody. “Continued and Recommended.” ArtScene, February 2016.

Stevens, Anise. “Farrah Karapetian.” Artillery, February 3, 2016.

Pagel, David. “Critics Choice: A head spinning journey to the edges of Farrah Karapetian’s photographic world.” Los Angeles Times, January 21, 2016.

Black, Ezrha Jean. “Fill your Heart…(Part 1 of 2).” Artillery, January 12, 2016.

Weingart, Ken. “Interview with Farrah Karapetian.” Art and Photography Blog, November 18, 2015.

Geha, Katie. “Beyond Muscle Memory: An Interview with Farrah Karapetian.” The Georgia Review, November 4, 2015.

Knoblauch, Loring. “Farrah Karapetian at Danziger.” Collector Daily, October 23, 2015.

Kedmey, Karen. “Karapetian’s New Photograms Lay Down a Metallic Beat at Danziger Gallery.” Artsy Editorial, September 11, 2015.

ARTRA Curatorial: Max Presneill, Kio Grifith and Colton Stenke. “Emergent Presence. Fresh Faces in Art: Eight LA Artists You Should Know.” Fabrik, Issue 28.

831 North Highland Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90038

323.462.2790

dianerosenstein.com

DIANE ROSENSTEIN GALLERY

2014

2013 2012

2010

2009

2008 2003

Cotton, Charlotte. Photography is Magic! Aperture.

Schwartz, Chip. “Farrah Karapetian and the concert that never was at Von Lintel Gallery in Los Angeles.” theartblog.com, February 26, 2015.

Ollman, Leah. “Beautiful, conceptually ticklish photograms by Farrah Karapetian.” Los Angeles Times, February 14, 2015.

Hegert, Natalie. “In Colors: Farrah Karapetian at Von Lintel.” artcritical, February 11, 2015.

Darsa, Alissa. “Must-See Art Guide: Los Angeles.” Artnet News, January 29, 2015.

Griffin, Jonathan. “Into the Shadows.” Tate Etc., Issue 33, Spring 2015.

Melrod, George. “Farrah Karapetian.” art ltd., January 2015.

Jacobson, Louis. “Two Takes on the Berlin Wall at the Goethe-Institut.” Washington City Paper (November 11, 2014).

Lisci, Luca. “Begone and present.” TAR digital edition, May 31-June 6, 2014.

Schwendener, Martha. “Origins Story, Through a Modern Lens – Experimental Strategies at Aipad’s Photography Show.” New York Times, April 10, 2014.

Nazarevskaia, Kristina. “Top AIPAD Recommendations: Farrah Karapetian at Von Lintel Gallery.” galleryIntell, April, 2014.

Black, Ezrha Jean. “Between a Rock and Ice.” Artillery, November/December 2013.

Lipschutz, Yael. “Review of Representation Cubed,” Whitehot Magazine, June 2012.

Hsing-Huei Chou, Elizabeth. “ELAC Space Shows Art That’s Here Today,” EGP News, May 2012.

Mizota, Sharon. “Review of Representation Cubed,” Los Angeles Times, May 2012.

Heuer, Megan. “500 Words, as told to.” Artforum.com, Spring 2012.

Frank, Peter. “Haiku Review: Paper Hearts and Harpsichords.” Huffington Post, February 29, 2012.

Martin, Terri. “Review of Lovingly, Rose Peebles.” Glendale News, December 10, 2010.

“Artist Curated Projects: A Radical Artist-for-and-by Artist Collective.” Interview Magazine, December 2010.

“OPEN HOUSE, STATE SECRETS.” Polimorfo Journal (Puerto Rico), Summer 2010.

Killion, Stephen. “Empowering Architecture – Open House, State Secrets.” Architizer, Summer 2010.

Ollman, Leah. “Farrah Karapetian at Sandroni Rey.” Los Angeles Times, October 9, 2009.

Souza, John. “Farrah Karapetian: Tragic Muse’ at Sandroni.Rey.” Artweek, April 2009.

Shaw, Michael. “Farrah Karapetian at Sandroni.Rey.” artslant.com, February 2009 “Catherine Taft’s Round-Up of the Best Shows in LA.” saatchi-gallery.co.uk, February 2009. “art la 09: no country for old men.” venicepaper.net, February 2009.

Ramade, Benedicte. "Los Angeles Sous Le Manteau.” Zérodeux, Automne 2008.

“Continuing and Recommended Exhibitions.” Artscenecal, March 2008.

Baker, Kenneth. "Artists on Art.” San Francisco Chronicle, May 2003.

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS AND COMMISSIONS J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA Columbus Museum of Art, OH Sir Elton John Photography Collection Flint Public Art Project, Flint, MI

831 North Highland Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90038

323.462.2790

dianerosenstein.com