Ali Banisadr: The Alchemist is the first major U.S. museum survey of the contemporary artist Ali Banisadr. This exhibition encompasses nearly twenty years of the artist’s singular practice, from 2006 to the present, across the mediums of painting, drawing, and printmaking. Sculpture, a new direction for the artist, will be presented for the first time.
Banisadr’s densely populated paintings are influenced by his experience of synesthesia, linking color and form. Drawing on childhood experiences of the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88) in his native Tehran, where explosions and other aural disturbances were commonplace, Banisadr painstakingly and intuitively builds complex compositions that exude a vitality at once turbulent and celebratory.
The exhibition reveals Banisadr’s artistic practice as a careful balancing act between chaos and composure, and abstraction and representation. His images display a dazzling mastery of art history, philosophy, and world events, offering a nuanced perspective of human nature. The works are rich with figurative illusions rooted in autobiographical narratives, sonic recollection, invented stories, world history, collective memory, and mythology. Banisadr creates complex, turbulent worlds witha multitude of references from across art history—including Abstract Expressionism German Expressionism, Medieval Renaissance art, alchemical imagery, Mesopotamian antiquities, and Persian miniatures—as well as references to our own tempestuous times.
About Ali Banisadr
Born in Tehran, Iran in 1976, the artist grew up amidst the turmoil of the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88). In 1988, Banisadr left Iran with his family at the age of twelve, first reaching Turkey and then San Diego, California. While living in San Francisco as a young adult, he became involved with the local graffiti art community while studying psychology. He later moved to New York City where he earned a BFA at the School of Visual Arts (2005) and an MFA at the New York Academy of Art (2007). The artist currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Banisadr has been the subject of international solo museum exhibitions at the Museo Stefano Bardini and Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, (2021); Benaki Museum, Athens, (2020); Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, (2020); Gemäldegalerie, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, (2019); and the Het Noordbrabants Museum, Den Bosch, (2019).
His work has also been included in major group exhibitions including the Venice Biennale (2013) and Prague Biennale (2013). Banisadr’s work is included in significant public collections including the Benaki Museum, Athens; British Museum, London; Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Het Noordbrabants Museum, Den Bosch; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum der Moderne, Salzburg; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia; and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT, among others.
Ali Banisadr: The Alchemist is organized by the Katonah Museum of Art
Curated by Michelle Yun Mapplethorpe, Director and Chief Curator, Katonah Museum of Art
GENEROUS SUPPORT PROVIDED BY ART BRIDGES
FUNDED IN PART BY THE CITY OF ST. PETERSBURG AND THE MARGARET ACHESON STUART SOCIETY
MEDIA PARTNER: WUSF: YOUR HOME FOR NPR / WSMR CLASSICAL
Images:
Ali Banisadr (b. 1976 in Tehran, Iran. Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY). These fragments I have shored against my ruins (detail), 2023.
Oil on linen, 86 x 180 in. (218.4 x 457.2 cm). Mohammed Afkhami Foundation. Photography by Genevieve Hanson. © Ali Banisadr