Monir shahroudy farmanfarmaian biography of george michael

Over six decades, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian (1922 - 2019) investigated the intricate geometries of her Iranian heritage, reconfiguring traditional craft techniques to explore the philosophical, poetic, and perceptual possibilities of interlocking primary forms.

As she told curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, "Each of them have a lot of meaning. With her background in needlework and having studied fashion drawing at Parsons School of Design, Farmanfarmaian achieved commercial success as a freelance fashion illustrator, creating dress and textile designs for magazines such as Glamour.

In seeking to recreate the impact of Shah Cheragh in a much more everyday object, Farmanfarmaian was attempting to bring the sacred, dematerialized quality of the mosque to everyday life.

The work blends vertical and diagonal lines, triangles, hexagons, and circles. Farmanfarmaian's earliest memories, not surprisingly, reflect the lushness of this early life - the peach, almond, and walnut trees of her hometown, the overflowing stalls of the bazaars (where she once, unwisely, teased a camel), and the palaces and mosques filled with finely-crafted objects, color, and light.

There is, in these works, a quality not unlike that found in early Cubism, of forms blown apart, as the architectonic lines and ornamental details recall the elements of an Islamic mosque in a fractured, multi-perspective view.

Felt-tipped pen and colored pencil on paper - Haines Gallery, San Francisco, California

1994

Heartache No.

7

Following the death of her husband in 1991 and while still in exile from Iran, Farmanfarmaian created a series of twenty-five sculptural assemblage memory boxes referred to as Heartaches, filled with family photographs, jewelry, and other ephemera she had either collected or produced that reminded her of her homeland. As late as 2016, at the age of 93, she said, "I am dying to do new things." On April 20, 2019, at 96, Farmanfarmaian died at her home.

Visiting New York City for the holidays, Farmanfarmaian and her husband were forced into an exile that would last for twenty-five years.

Separated from her home and family and from the materials and other resources she relied on for her art, Farmanfarmaian began a period of experimenting with other media, out of necessity, often using very humble objects and supplies.

Of those times, Farmanfarmaian later joked in 2015, "I was not drinking; I was a good Muslim at that time. With her new friends, she would attempt to discuss art history, aesthetic theory and art-world gossip, although she admitted at times to having little idea what was being said. Finding herself indefinitely estranged from her studio and other resources necessary to continue producing large-scale sculpture, she honed connection with cultural memory through intensive exercises in drawing, collage, jewelry, carpets, and small-scale sculpture.

Rather than being a woman, it was difficult just being Iranian."

Nevertheless, she threw herself back into her mirror works, collaborating with a large workshop of artisans, and saw her international reputation continue to grow. Spanning mirrored mosaics, sculptural assemblage, drawings, textiles and monotypes, Monir’s multidimensional practice centered on incorporating elements from her inherited past into her own designs—which blended a range of compositional influences, from classical Persian interior decoration to Western modernism. 

Monir is best known for her mirror-works, in which cut polygonal fragments of reflective, reverse-painted glass are arranged into kaleidoscopic compositions grounded on principles of Islamic geometry.

And the hexagon has the most potential for three-dimensional sculpture and architectural forms."

Mirror and reverse-glass painting on plaster on plastic - James Cohan Gallery, New York