Image: Untitled (2012); Mixed media; Dimension variable; Courtesy of the artist

Image: Untitled (2012); Mixed media; Dimension variable; Courtesy of the artist

Crowd Control

Emerging Artist Series #7: Tannaz Farsi: Crowd Control

Guest Curator: Tim Berg, assistant professor of art, Pitzer College

January 26 – March 22, 2013
Lenzner Family Art Gallery

you_are_invisible
You are Invisible (2012); Mixed media; Dimension variable; Courtesy of the artist

Tannaz Farsi’s work examines the activity surrounding cultural uprisings and uses liminal moments in our current landscape of events that can speak to individual agency. Farsi’s sources range from the language of advertising to mass-produced, pedestrian objects, such as fluorescent light bulbs, cinder blocks, megaphones and roses, which evoke political protests as well as the globalized economy. This negotiation of the mundane to the historical presents an opportunity to create monuments that aren’t generated through the proclamation of power but by the understanding of human fallibility. Through the relationship of objects, shift of scale and contingency of parts, Farsi embraces the flux of transmission, temporality and site by examining the semiology connected to the construction of meaning in public space.

The work shown in Lenzner Family Art Gallery will explore language and objects that highlight political divisions by transforming recognizable forms to manifest the perceptual and emotional aspects associated with the visual vocabulary of conflict. By translating material from our contemporary cultural archive, Farsi’s practice is invested in producing speculative realities that allow for subjective intervention.

About the Artist

Flag
Flag (2012); Mixed media; Dimension variable; Courtesy of the artist

Tannaz Farsi received her MFA from Ohio University in Athens, OH in 2007 and a BFA summa cum laude from West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV in 2004. Farsi has participated in numerous solo exhibitions including Losing Themselves in a Distance to Far Away Heights at Disjecta in Portland, OR (2011); Of News and Reclamation at Delaware Center for Contemporary Art in Wilmington, DE (2010); The Future Belongs to Crowds at Ohge Ltd, Seattle, WA (2009); ECHOMAKER at The Barron and Elin Gordon Galleries, ODU University in Norfolk, VA (2009); the Formal Absences of Precious Things at Sculpture Center in Cleveland, OH (2008); and Self-Haunted and Synthetic at Siegfried Gallery in Athens, OH (2007). She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions including In Light Richmond at 1708 Gallery in Richmond, VA (2012); The Long Now at Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in Eugene, OR (2012); Beacons at Urban Institute of Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, MI (2011); The 9th Northwest Biennial at Tacoma Art Museum in Tacoma, WA (2009); Architecture of Fragments at The New Art Center Gallery in Newtonville, MA (2009); HANDS REMAIN STILL at Tacoma Contemporary in Tacoma, WA (2009); Surreal Systems at Gallery Homeland, PDX Film Festival in Portland, OR (2009); Beginnings and Ends at Gallery 621 in Tallahassee, FL (2009); and 1990 Until Now* at The Winery in Louisville, KY (2007). Farsi was the recipient of Bemis Center for Contemporary Art award in 2008 and Artist Fellowship Grant from Oregon Arts Commission in 2010. In 2011, she was awarded the MacArthur Foundation Travel Grant, the Leon Levy Foundation Grant, the Dean’s Award from the University of Oregon and was the finalist for both The Brink Award of Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, WA and Contemporary Northwest Art Awards from Portland Art Museum in Portland, OR. Farsi was the artist-in-resident at Bernis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, NE in 2009 and at MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, NH in 2011. Tannaz Farsi lives and works in Eugene, OR, where she currently serves as an assistant professor of art at the University of Oregon.

About the Curator

Tim Berg is assistant professor of art at Pitzer College and a sculptor. Berg and his full-time studio collaborator, Rebekah Myers, have participated in numerous exhibitions including On the brink at Dean Project Gallery in New York, NY (2011); As Luck Would Have It at Nääs Konsthantverk Galleri in Göteborg, Sweden (2009); All Good Things… at Dean Project Gallery in Long Island City, NY (2008); Hope Springs Eternal at Seigfred Gallery at Ohio University in Athens, OH (2007); and Glacial at Ironton Studios in Denver, CO (2007). Over the years, Berg and Myers have participated in numerous group exhibitions in the US, Mexico, South Korea, Sweden and Kuwait. Their work is included in several private and public collections including the Betty Wood­man Collection at the University of Colorado and the Biedermann Museum in Germany. Berg additionally works as a freelance curator and has curated a number of exhibitions including The 67th Scripps Ceramic Annual (2011); Student Exchange Exhibition (2007 and 2004); and Northern Colorado Regional Student Show (2004). Berg received his MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2003 and BFA magna cum laude from the University of Colorado in Boulder in 2000.

Related Events

Opening Reception: Saturday, January 26, 2-4 p.m. at Nichols Gallery

Artist Lecture: Monday, January 28 at 9:00 a.m. in Lenzner Family Art Gallery