Golnar Adili
Golnar Adili, Structural Play
“Forgetting and relearning both English and Persian multiple times as a child has made language a fascinating reference in my work. Persian poetry, as well as biographical text investigating a landscape of longing, have provided a valuable context for examining language structurally.
The two pieces presented in this exhibition are comparative studies of the two verbs benshinand and benshaanand, to sit and to seat something or someone, from a hypnotic poem by Hafez, 14th Century Iranian poet. I have designed the typography of these words in pixels to alleviate questions of calligraphy and to infuse them with a contemporary read and architecture. In the Benshinand, Benshaanand Installation I draw attention to the verbs’ similarity and form and criss-cross them to create architecture and to suggest urban space. In the second piece, Benshinand Benshaanand Seesaw, the two verbs are compared by the difference in their weights. In this installation, the seesaw is a symbol of play which also becomes the scale emphasizing the comparative nature of this investigation.”
Photo Credit: Walter Wlodarczyk
Courtesy of the artist and JHB Gallery, New York
Photo Credit: Walter Wlodarczyk
Courtesy of the artist and JHB Gallery, New York
Photo Credit: Walter Wlodarczyk
Courtesy of the artist and JHB Gallery, New York
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Golnar Adili was born in Virginia to Iranian parents who were activists against the then shah. Migrating to Iran in the wake of the revolution, the artist grew up in post-1979 Tehran in the face of seismic geopolitical shifts, experiencing uprooting and disconnection as her father was forced into exile to escape political persecution. Much of her work engages with this tumultuous period, deconstructing and reconstructing past traumas in order to decode the ways in which these events have marked her.
Adili’s work has been exhibited at galleries and museums internationally, including CUE Art Foundation, New York; Cantor Center at Stanford University, CA; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Triangle Arts, Brooklyn; The Center for Book Arts, New York; Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles; and Mottahedan Project, Dubai. The artist has been the recipient of numerous awards including New York Foundation for the Arts / New York State Council on the Arts Fellowships, the Brooklyn Arts Council Arts Fund Grant, Pollock Krasner Awards, as well as residencies at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace, The MacDowell Colony, and PS122 Studio Space, New York.