Curated by
Francesca Benini

A project in collaboration with
Istituto Svizzero
Roma | Milano | Palermo

Studio Shahryar Nashat
Cooper Jacoby
Simon Brossard
Paul Gonzalez

Shahryar Nashat creates sculptures, videos, and installations in which the human body and its representations play a fundamental role. This is not a purely visual analysis, but rather an exploration of what it means to be body, flesh, matter.

For his largest exhibition in Switzerland, he has developed a project that radically alters the architecture of MASI’s underground hall, creating a narrative into which the works fit harmoniously. The artist’s interventions, such as the total covering of the floor or the altered tone of the lights, induce a heightened awareness of the space and, with the sound diffused throughout the room, create a unified environment that stimulates the sensations of those who enter. In the works on display – almost all new – waste, fluids, and organic residues are treated in the same way as artistic and industrial materials, such as resin, oil paint, and marble, revealing a disturbing aesthetic proximity. The bodies that populate the exhibition may nod at technology, existing only through pixels and digital images, or be tactile and physical to the point of evoking our own flesh.

At a moment in history in which many of our bodily experiences are filtered by technologies, Nashat’s work is an extremely stimulating evolution of figurative art that deconstructs aesthetic and cultural conventions, offering new perspectives on the human condition.

The pale pink modular tiles with which the artist has covered the entire floor of the hall and the outer walls of the central area instantly alter the perception of any object that is placed there. The architectural intervention queers the neutrality of the space and is a physical change with immediate impact that can also be considered a gesture of deconstruction of established norms, encouraging reflection on the mutability and diversity of perception. 
Nashat’s art predisposes us towards an engagement that is based not only on rational understanding, but also involves the more intuitive and involuntary part of our feeling.

The walls and ceiling inside the structure in the center of the hall have an unfinished appearance that creates a strong contrast with the outer space and conveys the impression of being in an area not intended for public viewing. The walls are hung with six sculptures from the Bone Out series, on which the artist has been working since 2019. Using synthetic materials and oil paints, Nashat creates works that appear to be pieces of meat of unknown origin, evoking the processes of the food industry, but also establishing a link with traditional representations of raw meat in art history. Whether in the form of virtuoso renditions of carcasses in 17th-century still-life paintings or imitations, photographs or real organs used in more recent works, meat fascinates, arousing both desire and disgust, and inevitably refers back to the material texture of our bodies. Nashat observes the body reflecting on its limitations, in time and space, and the possibilities of prolonging its existence, if only as an artistic representation. It is not just the vitality of the body that interests him, but also its perishability, to which the interventions on the walls, made by mixing silicone with biological remains, refer.

In the fiberglass sculptures positioned on the floor, the reference to the body is more subtle. Boyfriend_14.JPEG, Boyfriend_15.JPEG, and Boyfriend_16.JPEG become physical presences in which the artist seems to fuse carnality with American Minimalism, working on clean geometric shapes with imperfections that appear to reveal muscular or skeletal tissue. The mutilations convey vulnerability but also the sensation of looking at a living object to which one can relate. These sculptures are also part of a series Nashat has been working on for several years; the ones on display at MASI are the most recent and the boniest version ever made by the artist. The titles, on the other hand, refer to the initial format of the works, which always commence as simple digital images that are then 3D computer-modeled by the artist.

After leaving the central space, a change of lighting and atmosphere intensifies the feeling of transition. On the outer walls, an image fitted onto a relief is covered with an acrylic gelatin that gives the depiction an organic appearance, which simultaneously attracts and repels. In Brother_03.JPEG and Brother_08.JPEG the body – the flesh – becomes an object, presented in traditional exhibition forms. Here too, the title evokes the photographic nature of the print, interfering with the synesthetic sensations aroused by the secretions that cover it. In this case, the concrete and material dimension of the image highlights by contrast how it is precisely the body and the artwork that are often mediated by screens in our digital age.

Although he likes to experiment with unconventional ideas and materials in his works, Nashat is also a keen observer of art history, sometimes working with techniques and materials with age-old traditions, such as marble for sculpture. Indeed, in the collective imagination, marble evokes works stretching from antiquity to the modern age and has always been used to represent the human body like no other material. Considering this memory, the reference to the body in Hustler_23.JPEG and Hustler_24.JPEG is reinforced by the veins and orange-red tones of Rosa Portugal marble. At the same time, the 3D computer-modeled forms (and perhaps also their similarity in colour to the floor and walls) interfere with the carnality of the stone and the material’s classical connotations.

At the end of the exhibition hall, the back of the central structure reveals an imposing LED wall across which images scroll, accompanied by a musical track that fills the whole room. The looping video Warnings is the beating heart of the show and imparts a sense of rhythm to the exhibition narrative, even before it is seen. Embedded in the architecture of the structure in the center of the hall, the video has a strong physical presence and appears as the living, moving counterpart of the inner space beyond the wall, where instead a sense of disruption and decay (perhaps even decomposition) prevails. Even though the wolves – filmed in their natural habitat, digitally rendered, or recreated using artificial intelligence – convey a new sense of vigor and vitality, a feeling of unease remains. It is reinforced by the soundtrack: a panting that turns into a symphony of howls and laments and then becomes electronic music with a fast beat. Is this a warning? A mourning for the loss of a bond? It is not clear, but in the meantime the video resumes its cycle.

Nashat predisposes us to a deeper perception with his art: by exacerbating the material side of existence, he also allows incorporeal concepts, such as the sense of intimacy, desire, and animal instinct, to emerge more forcefully. This tension is already present in the Spleen of the title with which the artist evokes both the organ and the black mood for which it was considered responsible in ancient times, alluding from the outset to the physical and emotional duality that conditions our existence.

Shahryar Nashat is a visual artist. He has had solo shows at the Art Institute of Chicago (2023), the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago (with Bruce Hainley, 2023), the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2020); Swiss Institute, New York (2019); Kunsthalle Basel (2017); Portikus, Frankfurt (2016); Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (with Adam Linder, 2016). He shows with Rodeo Gallery, London/Piraeus, David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles/New York and Gladstone Gallery, New York/Brussels.

1   Hustler_20.JPEG

2024

Polyethylene container, urine

21 × 40 × 25 cm

 

2   For Left

2024

Steel, epoxy resin, acrylic paint

Dimensions variable

 

3   For Right

2024

Steel, epoxy resin, acrylic paint

Dimensions variable

 

4   Bone Out

2024

Synthetic polymer resin, oil paint

90 x 30 x 18 cm

 

5   Bone Out

2024

Synthetic polymer resin, oil paint

90 x 30 x 18 cm

 

6   Bone Out

2024

Synthetic polymer resin, oil paint

90 x 30 x 18 cm

 

7   Boyfriend_15.JPEG

2022

Polyester resin, fiberglass, acrylic paint

57 x 190 x 123 cm

 

8   Untitled

2024

Silicone, dust, hair, nails

Dimensions variable

 

9   Untitled

2024

Silicone, dust, hair, nails

Dimensions variable

 

10  Bone Out

2024

Synthetic polymer resin, oil paint

90 x 30 x 18 cm

 

11  Boyfriend_14.JPEG

2022

Polyester resin, fiberglass, acrylic paint

57 x 190 x 123 cm

 

12  Bone Out

2024

Synthetic polymer resin, oil paint

90 x 30 x 18 cm

 

13  Bone Out

2024

Synthetic polymer resin, oil paint

90 x 30 x 18 cm

 

14  Boyfriend_16.JPEG

2022

Polyester resin,
fiberglass, acrylic paint

214 x 116 x 60 cm

  

15  Brother_03.JPEG

2023

Acrylic gel, ink on paper, plywood

38 x 32.5 x 4.3 cm

 

16  Hustler_24.JPEG

2024

Marble

61 x 79 x 71 cm

 

17  Warnings

2024

HD video on LED wall

7 min 15 sec, color / sound

CGI Animation: Rustan Söderling

Character Animation: Dara Najmabadi

Sound: Steffen Martin

 

18  Brother_08.JPEG

2023

Acrylic gel, ink on paper, plywood

38 x 32.5 x 4.3 cm

 

19  Hustler_23.JPEG

2024

Marble

48 x 64 x 91 cm

 

1–6, 8–10, 12–13, 16–17, 19:

Courtesy the artist,
Gladstone Gallery, New York, David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles and Rodeo Gallery, London/Piraeus

 

7, 11, 14, 15, 18:

Courtesy the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York