Carpet, 2014, printed saxony carpet, 21 x 220 x 320 cm

Sirous Namazi »Twelve Thirty«

Stockholm, August 22, 2014 - September 27, 2014

In addition to exploring the legacies of Minimalism, the Readymade and the multiplicity of urban living and mass consumption, Sirous Namazi has throughout his practice explored themes of failure, vulnerability and destruction - both structural and personal. In his new exhibition at Galerie Nordenhake Namazi addresses directly the key moment that led to his escape from Iran and his family’s journey to Sweden. On 15th of November 1978, when Namazi was 8 years old, his family home was plundered and destroyed in connection to the persecution of members of Bahai faith in Shiraz. This event was part of a pattern of persecution which pushed the Namazi family into hiding and flight. Four years later and in the political and religious climate that followed the fall of the Shah, Sirous Namazi and his brothers and sisters were smuggled out of Iran into Pakistan by human smugglers, arriving one year later in Lund, Sweden, as refugees. The children were joined by their parents two years after their arrival.

The exhibition at Galerie Nordenhake is a spatial study of Namazi’s childhood home before its plundering. Using his own memory and that of his parents' and siblings', and a few remaining photographs, Namazi attempts to reify individual objects of his childhood home: a glass chandelier reconstituted with hand-painted, hand-blown glass and copper metalwork; a black and white interpretation of the family's Kerman woven carpet; a door in the house; the steps leading to the courtyard - all have been painstakingly remade by hand and arranged in relation to each other to reincarnate the home in the gallery space.

This new body of work ties together many of the themes that have permeated his oeuvre: from his experience as an immigrant in Sweden embodied in a suburban balcony (Periphery, 2002) and in a video work defining outsiderness through language and cultural references (Sirous Telling Jokes, 1996), to his "failed monument" presented in the Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2007 (Untitled, 2007), to the implicit anarchy and destruction in his tipped supermarket shelves (Leaning Horizontal) and the slow demolition of walls rubbing against each other in a constant earthquake (Untitled, both 2012).

The function of memory is crucial in the reconstruction of the family home. A new publication will be released in conjunction with the exhibition with photos, drawings and a collection of essays on the theme of memory from the following writers:

Lars-Göran Nilsson
PhD at Uppsala University in 1973, Professor of Psychology at Umeå University, professor of psychology at Stockholm University and professor at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, 2013. Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1989, and at four other foreign academies.

Stefan Lindberg
Stefan Lindberg is an author. His most recent novel is You do know that you are valuable, Albert Bonnier, 2014

Göran Dahlberg
Göran Dahlberg is founder and editor of Glänta magazine. Has written books Secret cities and To hang out with ghosts, and translated books by Slavoj Zizek and Trinh T Minh-ha among others to Swedish. He is also member of Eurozine Editorial Board.

Maliheh Haghighi
Sister of Sirous Namazi and fourth child of six in the family. She was one of the five siblings who came to Sweden as religious refugees in January 1986. Works today as pre-school teacher in Lund, Sweden.

Gertrud Sandqvist
Professor in the theory and history of ideas of visual art at Lund University, Sweden. She was also Dean at Malmö Art Academy, Lund University, 1995-2007.

Sirous Namazi was born in 1970 in Kerman, Iran. He lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. Namazi completed his MFA at the Malmö Art Academy, Sweden, in 1998. In 2007 he represented Sweden (with Jakob Dahlgren) at the 52nd Venice Biennial in the Nordic Pavilion. His work is currently presented at Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Siegen, Germany. Solo exhibitions include Fundació Joan Miró (Espai 13), Barcelona, Spain (2010) and Lunds Konsthall (2009), Moderna Museet (2003). He received the 2014 Gannevik Art Prize and previously the Edstrandska Award in 2012, the Ljunggrenska Konstnärspriset in 2003 and the Carnegie Art Award in 2006 (Best Emerging Young Artist). The Carnegie Art Award exhibition toured extensively internationally.

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