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This monograph on Iranian-born, Brooklyn-based painter Kamrooz Aram
(b.1978) presents the Palimpsest series, which was in part inspired
by graffiti on the streets of New York, and its constant
painting-over by the authorities, only for it to become covered
again in graffiti. The ongoing cycle of painting, covering-up and
repainting in the urban environment connects with Aram's
long-standing fascination with modernism and the legacies of
Abstract painting. Aram explains:"The word palimpsest derives from
the Greek term for a manuscript that has been scraped down so it
can be reused. However, this process of erasure is always
incomplete and traces of previous layers remain visible beneath the
most recent marks. I find the idea of painting as palimpsest
compelling because such a painting reveals its own past." The
concept of the palimpsest in relation to Aram's practice is
explored further in the publication in texts by Eva Diaz, Professor
of Contemporary Art at Pratt Institute in New York, and art
historian and critic Media Farzin. As discussed in an engaging
interview between the artist and critic and art historian Murtaza
Vali, Aram's interest in'painting as palimpsest' evolved over years
of observing and photographing walls in cities across the world,
from Brooklyn and Queens to Beirut and Istanbul. The worn walls of
Beirut still bear the scars of the civil war, while in Brooklyn,
years of graffiti and its covering-up reveal the history of New
York City. This phenomenon takes on a different, but related
meaning in a city such as Istanbul, where the graffiti is the
result of public demonstrations related directly or otherwise to
the Gezi Park protests. Aram states: "The graffiti was obviously
political and so the state's response was rapid. The protesters
would write and the state would cover it up immediately." A photo
essay and text by the artist further explore notions of the
palimpsest and covering-up. In the Palimpsest series, a floral
motif that Aram appropriated from a Persian carpet on sale in a
shop in Manhattan becomes a key element in the series, submerging
and re-emerging within the many layers of accumulated and erased
marks on his canvases. Working serially, the artist begins each
painting with this floral form, drawn across the surface of the
canvas in a grid, creating an overall pattern. Aram then begins
destroying and rebuilding this pattern through a process that
involves additive as well as subtractive mark-making: wiping away
and scraping down the painted surface over time to reveal previous
layers. The relationship between West and East, and more
specifically between the United States and the Middle East, has
long been a key concern in Aram's life and work. Central to Aram's
practice to date is the interface between Middle Eastern traditions
of pattern-making, decoration and ornamentation, and the 20th
century Western tradition of modernist painting, with geometry
often intersecting the two worlds. The mixing of these once
diametrically opposed paradigms tells a more complex story in
Aram's paintings of interwoven cultures, interconnected politics,
and of visual languages that collide, recede and reemerge over
time. Kamrooz Aram graduated with an MFA from Columbia University,
New York, in 2003. Since then his work has been widely exhibited
internationally and featured in publications such as The New York
Times, The New Yorker, The Village Voice, Art in America,
Artforum.com, ArtAsiaPacific, and Bidoun. Aram was a recipient of
the Abraaj Group Art Prize 2014. The publication, illustrated with
over fifty plates, photographs and details, has been edited by
Yasmin Atassi, designed by Joe Gilmore / Qubik, printed by Die
Keure, Bruges, and co-published by Green Art Gallery, Dubai, and
Anomie Publishing, Wakefield, UK.
In her work, Nazgol Ansarinia examines the systems and networks
that underpin her daily life, such as everyday objects, routines,
events, and experiences, and the relationship they form to a larger
social context. This new monograph surveys the artist's work of the
last fifteen years in sculptures, installation, drawing, and video.
The individual projects represent ways of understanding the role of
architecture in delineating interior end exterior spaces and
private and public spheres. Ansarinia's works are largely
observational and technical in their scope, offering insight into
the issues that are most pressing and urgent for today's cities and
the populations that inhabit them. This fully illustrated
publication features in-depth essays by Media Farzin, Hamed
Khosravi, and Maria Lind.
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