NOMADS OF PERSIA: Three New York City Presentations This December by Firouz FarmanFarmaian
MULTI-VENUE PRESENTATION IN
NEW YORK CITY WILL CULMINATE IN
A CROSS-BORDER PROJECT BY FIROUZ FARMANFARMAIAN
Nomads of Persia at Salomon Arts Gallery
On View December 14, 2024–January 14, 2025
Reception on December 14, 2024 from 6–8 PM
Live Multimedia Performance of PATH (Into the Vortex)
At The Museum of Arts and Design on December 12, 2024 at 5:30 PM
Paintovers at the Furman Gallery Lincoln Center
On View December 9–12, 2024
Antalya Portrait. Image courtesy of Firouz Farman-Farmaian.
“Our epoch will be marked by the romanticism of the stateless.” Emil M. Cioran
New York, NY – November 1, 2024 – Throughout December, Iranian-born artist Firouz FarmanFarmaian will present three events in New York City to conclude his international and interdisciplinary project NOMADS OF PERSIA. Returning to New York for the first time in more than five years, FamanFarmaian will show new and recent work at the Salmon Arts Gallery and the Furman Gallery at Lincoln Center, as well as an interactive video and musical performance and installation at the Museum of Arts and Design.
NOMADS OF PERSIA delves into the rich traditions and history of endangered nomadic tribes — the Bakhtyari and the Qashqai — drawing a parallel between the instability of their contemporary existence and the artist’s own experience living in exile. Forced to flee with his family after the Iranian Revolution of 1979, FarmanFarmaian revisits ancient textile traditions from a contemporary perspective, highlighting the ongoing relevance and aesthetic resonance of these cultural practices. Through this exploration, the NOMADS OF PERSIA series pays homage to a complex and often overlooked aspect of Persian cultural heritage while reflecting on themes of displacement, resilience, and identity.
“NOMADS OF PERSIA mirrors the post-globalized cultural sphere, where craft and tradition clash with contemporary visions, overlapping borders, and the fusion of identities,” explained FarmanFarmaian. “These themes interconnected powerfully and created a base for a global journey.”
The nexus of the three presentations is Nomads of Persia at the Salomon Arts Gallery in Tribeca, which will present works in mediums ranging from textiles and paint to sound and AI-generated video. The centerpiece of the exhibition will be three large-scale textile works made from hand-knotted wool and silk produced in Varanasi, India that recently debuted in London. Additionally, eight new works in FarmanFarmaian’s “paintover” series will be on view, in which pre-Islamic-Revolution archival prints of Qashqai craftswomen, a Turkic tribe based in Iran, are painted over with acrylic and oil abstractions. The exhibition will open with a reception on Saturday, December 14 from 6–8 PM.
Among the works at Salomon Arts Gallery will be PATH (Into the Vortex), an immersive audio-video piece that will be created during a one-time event at the Museum of Arts and Design on December 12, 2024. In collaboration with the NYC multimedia studio Interactive Items, PATH will be produced in real-time, with an AI-generated flux of sequences and footage shot by FarmanFarmaian in Kyrgyzstan synched to a live performance by the artist’s band, FORRM. The resulting artwork will be independently presented in the Nomads of Persia exhibition and will be later embedded into the documentary PATH. PATH (Into the Vortex) continues FarmanFarmaian’s creation and gathering of footage from his travels and work, a practice that the artist began in his first trip to Kyrgyzstan, which he would later represent at the first official Kyrgz pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale.
Last, from December 9 through 12, the Furman Gallery at Lincoln Center will host Paintovers, a pop-up exhibition organized by Saint-Tropez–based Juncture Gallery and curated by Camilla FarmanFarmaian. A projection of Farman-Farmaian’s film The Lost And The Last will be on view, as well as five limited edition prints from the videography. The pop-up will debut the paintovers that will later exhibit at Nomads of Persia at Salomon Arts Gallery. The artist will host breakfast talks at the gallery to explore topics such as spiritual romanticism and nomadic displacement.
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About Firouz FarmanFarmaian
Firouz FarmanFarmaian (b. 1973 in Tehran, Iran) is an artist, composer, film director, and cultural producer. He is a descendant of the Qajar dynasty, a Turkic tribe that rose to power in present-day Iran in the late 1700s. Exiled since the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution, he is French-Swedish by nationality and considers himself stateless. FarmanFarmaian is inspired by history, memory, nomadic visual culture, and the concept of the post-tribal — a way of rehabilitating tribal tradition and worldview back into contemporary discourse. His work is often sourced from, inspired by, and produced in collaboration with tribal craftsmen. Through the mediums of painting, textile, film, music, and technology, he explores themes such as Persian lore, nature, industrial design and architecture, and the interplay between realism and abstraction.
Instagram:
@firouzfarmanfarmaian
@nomadsofpersia
About Juncture Gallery
Juncture Gallery was founded by Camilla and Firouz FarmanFarmaian in 2023 to foster a deeper understanding of the crossover between art and design. All NOMADS OF PERSIA-related units and artworks will exclusively be available on Juncture’s Artsy page: https://www.artsy.net/partner/juncture-gallery
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For images, further background or interviews, please contact:
Katrina Stewart
Senior Account Coordinator, Visual Arts
Blue Medium
T: +1-212-675-1800