ART-PRESENTATION: Nairy Baghramian-Déformation Professionnelle
Nairy Baghramian explores inherited forms and concepts from the history of art in order to address issues of functionality, decoration, abstraction and feminism. Her sculptures, made from a wide range of materials bring art historical references into the realm of the subjective, they are dismantled and recombined with human physiology and the principles of interior design.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: S.M.A.K. Archive
Nairy Baghramian’s solo exhibition “Déformation Professionnelle” at S.M.A.K. in Gent, takes its title from a French phrase that indicates an adjustment to one’s worldview that results from being overly specialized or an expert, the phrase also speaks of analysing one’s profession or métier: in this case the artist’s method. The exhibition is comprised of a series of new pieces that mirror or play off of the artist’s previous bodies of work while responding directly to the site, creating a new model of what a retrospective can be and allowing the exhibition to evolve in real time and space. Taking its title from a French phrase that indicates an adjustment made to one’s worldview from being overly specialized or made expert, the exhibition also speaks to the process of taking apart or making transparent one’s profession—in this case, the laying bare of the sculptor’s method. Through her playful take on the retrospective gaze, Baghramian unpacks and interrogates the conceptual, physical, and social aspects of sculpture. Her work marks boundaries, transitions, and gaps in the museum and the urban space, referencing interior and exterior, fashion and design, theater and dance, form and meaning, context and discourse. Using such materials as curved steel sheets and soft rubber, geometric frameworks and hybrid objects, plastics, waxes, and fabrics as well as cast or combined elements and photography, the artist challenges and questions the definition of sculpture. In doing so, she exposes the context of her exhibitions, making this tension inseparable from her artistic production.
Info: Curator: Martin Germann, S.M.A.K., Jan Hoetplein 1, Gent, Duration: 29/11/16-19/2/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 9:30-17:30, Sat-Sun 10:00-18:00, http://smak.be
