Container II, 2008, is a waste container that has been spliced open and stretched across the floor of the gallery room. While the monochrome green metal sculpture is a real container, it has been de-contextualized from its environment; here, with its form opened up, the object fails in its function. Like all of his works Container II deals with duality. The artist executes a shift in meaning through the deconstruction of familiar objects, disrupting them in their functionality and moving them to the sphere of art. It is sophisticated, perfectly executed with a sharp sense for the finite and detailed, but at the same time creates a tension by offering a social perspective speaking of contemporary consumer society, trade, transport and logistics.
The structure Untitled (Modules), 2009 consists of identically repeated modules, scaled-down prototypes of an architectural unit, that were industrially lacquered in different colours and assembled into a form. In his practice, Namazi refers clearly to architecture and art history particularly to minimalism. This work is part of a series in which Namazi examines architectural space through variable combinations of volume and colour. The modules are architectural, but they are also very much objects, models of a structure that is always in a state of transformation.
The transparent sculpture, Version, 2009, on display in the second space, corresponds in many ways to Untitled (Modules), 2009. The sculpture is made up of basic constructive elements based on blueprints for houses, assembled together in a form that disperses in numerous directions. The work, which is suspended from only one point, appears to be slightly in motion. The structure represents a model, executed twenty times smaller than the imagined original. In focusing on the architectural as a physical and a psychological space, Namazi allows us to experience the corporeality of the spatial.
Patterns of Failure, 2009 is a new work that is part of a series with the same title, consisting of discarded porcelain that the artist found and shattered into random forms. He re-assembled the fragments, gluing them together with epoxy in a tower-like form. The height of the sculpture makes it extremely precarious and delicate, while the full form and small porcelain details give way to a strangely baroque object.
In producing extremely formal works with heavy emphasis on colour, Namazi investigates the painterly qualities inherent to the works. His practice also incorporates notions of play and coincidence, and the seven new drawings illustrate the artist’s preparatory process. Rejected objects, outsiderness, fragility, and identity are constant themes in Namazi’s art. The pieces map polarities such as private and public, individual and collective, fiction and reality, local and global. By dismantling and reassembling, Namazi presents an anthropological and intimate view of the everyday, questioning the superficiality and paradoxes of our contemporary society. Sirous Namazi was born 1970 in Kerman, Iran, and relocated to Sweden as a teenager after the Iranian Revolution. He currently lives and works in Stockholm. In 2007 Namazi represented Sweden (with Jakob Dahlgren) at the 52nd Venice Biennale in the Nordic Pavillion. He was awarded with the Ljunggrenska Art Prize in 2003 and the Carnegie Art Award in 2006 (Best Emerging Young Artist). The Carnegie Art Award exhibition toured extensively internationally over three years. His recent exhibitions include a solo exhibition at Lunds Konsthall, Sweden in 2009. Namazi has also exhibited at Moderna Museet, Stockholm solo in 2003 and group in 2006, Gallery Magnus Åklund (Malmö, 2007 and 2002), Galleria Suzy Shammah (Milan, 2007 and 2005), and Fägfabriken (Ljunggrenska Art Prize, Stockholm, 2003). Recent group exhibitions include ABC in Berlin 2008, MART Trento e Rovereto (Italy, 2008), Momentum (Moss, Norway 2004) and Nya namm (Malmö Konstmuseum, 2003). Sirous Namazi has been exhibiting with Nordenhake gallery since 2003.
