ASPEN ART MUSEUM
SUMMER 2023 EDITION
15
couple of years. Each time we collabo- rate, for me, there is another window that opens into another dimension. Most recently, I saw in her studio an amazing body of drawings which I had no idea about. I just think there are probably so many facets to Nairy’s work that we don’t even know about yet. It has only just begun.
Below Nairy Baghramian and Maria Hassabi, with Janette Laverrière and Carlo Mollino, Entre Deux Actes (Ménage à Quatre) , 2019, installation view, Performa 19
Charles Aubin Senior Curator and Head of Publications, Performa, New York
A lot of Nairy’s sculptures allude to the idea of a prosthetic, or extension, or replication of limbs and body parts. She thinks in a very direct, corporeal sense, and the materials she uses (wax, rubber, resin …) often have a kind of tactile appeal. They make a direct call to the viewer in a physical way. During a studio visit back in 2018, Nairy told me about an installation that she had presented at Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany—a collaboration with the designer Janette Laverrière called Entre Deux Actes II—Loge des Comédiennes, which was a reconfiguration of one of Janette’s designs from 1947, as an instal- lation. It’s a green room for a singer. At the time, when she told me about this project, I was simultaneously in conver- sation with a space on Fifth Avenue in New York about partnering for Per- forma. It’s called 1014 now, but it was the old Goethe Institute building—an empty townhouse from 1907, facing the Met. I felt there was something to explore around its domestic aspect, and this is where the performance Entre Deux Actes (Ménage à Quatre) was eventually held. What I think is very special about Entre Deux Actes (Ménage à Quatre) is the way that Nairy is a true collaborator. She has a studio practice that she keeps private, but she also often makes space for projects that are more open-ended in their relationship to other artists. The green room with Janette was done very respectfully. It was not Nairy as a visual artist taking over the legacy or what this older modernist designer represents. It was a conversation. Nairy created the conditions for a very mindful collabora- tion. In New York, she also included her collection of Carlo Mollino photographs in the installation. They’re erotic images that the Italian architect and designer made in the 1960s, in secret, with a series of women who he would dress for the occasion in wigs and lingerie. These photoshoots were a performance for one, and that was something that Nairy was interested in. For Performa, we invited the choreographer Maria Hassabi to join in. Together, Nairy and Maria were very interested in seeing how you can mix up, or turn upside down, the quality of some of the spaces in the townhouse. So for instance, the parlor became Janette’s green room, and the ballroom the site for Maria’s very intimate duet—a space where you would usually expect to find group dances, social dances. Every time I see a show by Nairy, I feel as if I learn something new about sculpture and what it means to be a sculptor, whether as I said, that is the relationship to the body, or the relation- ship to matter, materiality and process- es. Also, something that I find unusual and very impressive in Nairy’s work is that she does not really repeat herself, and yet you sense that her approach is consistent. Her engagement with sculpture, formally and conceptually, and her ability to push the limits of the medium makes her work unique.
Nairy Baghramian is this year’s recipient of the Aspen Art Museum’s Award for Art, which is awarded at the museum’s annual ArtCrush Gala. For details of Aspen ArtWeek & the ArtCrush Gala please visit aspenartmuseum.org
Laura McLean-Ferris is a writer and curator. She lives in Turin, Italy.
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