For a Different Future: Situations
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For a Different Future
Situations Gallery, New York
January 12 - February 24. 2019
Exploring the intersection of contemporary craft and social practice, Aminlari employs geometry and abstraction with a rhythmic intensity matched by ideas surrounding the transnational dissemination and intercultural reception of embroidery, the color blue, and labor.
Inspired by a trip to Porto, Portugal, Aminlari discovered the unmistakable Persian influences of blue, the interlocking curvilinear, geometric, and floral motifs used in the Azulejo tiles (painted tin-glazed ceramic tile-work found on the interior and exterior of churches, palaces, ordinary houses, schools, restaurants, bars, etc.). Encountering these works, Aminlari felt a full-circle-effect transcendent of time and place. Returning to New York, Aminlari’s multi-layered process began with coats of blue gouache, followed by meticulously hand-stitching geometric shapes, in colored and 24-karat gold vintage Japanese metallic threads, onto the painted paper. The works are matted and framed in blues and hang in a blue gallery.
Viewers are invited to sit on an indigo carpet and engage with 72 six-inch-square works held within a custom-made box. Allowing people to create their own patterns using the tile-sized artworks, Aminlari considers authorship, viewership, ownership, and class in the art field. Offering the works for one day’s wage mirrors Aminlari’s personal labor in creating the artwork. For instance, if someone makes New York City’s 2019 minimum wage ($13.50/hr), then the work is available for $108, and retail increases accordingly. Questions concerning the accessibility to art, in combination with recent minimum and living wage activism, drove Aminlari to devise this system of obtaining art independent from the usual artist/gallery pricing strategies. The end results are a matrix of mosaic patterns that simultaneously build upon and eclipse any singular class or culture.