Shirana Shahbazi

 
Born 1974 in Tehran, Shirana Shahbazi moved to Germany when she was a child. Today she is based in Zurich. Trained as a photographer, Shahbazi shoots images – including portraits, still lifes and landscapes – and often uses them as source material not only for photographs but also for paintings, billboards or handmade carpets. By altering the scale and transposing the imagery into a new medium or a style associated with another culture, she subverts viewers' expectations and explores the complexity of identity.
Shirana Shahbazi's oeuvre reflects an ongoing interest in the relationship between images, their surfaces and their objecthood, as well as between the various artistic media and their apparent iconic qualities. Her pictures range from color-field abstractions to volatile holiday snapshots. The artist has assembled a population of images, which handles an equal weight as a dispersed as well as a coherent body of work. This showcases an impressive transitional quality, a mastery which Shirana Shahbazi hasn't yet grown tired to pursue. From heavy frames to delicate litho-prints, her projects talk in fragments about the artist's genuine engagement with issues of representation as well as the presentation of images themselves.
For her works she has received prestigious prizes, such as the Citigroup Private Bank Photography Prize (2002). She took part in the 50th Venice Biennale (2003) and has had exhibitions in notable museums e.g.: Museum of Modern Art, New York (2012/2013), Fotomuseum Winterthur (2011), New Museum, New York (2011), The Hammer Museum, UCLA, Los Angeles (2008), Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2008), Barbican Art Gallery, London (2007), Centre d'Art Contemporain, Genf (2005), Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago (2003).
Shirana Shahbazi is a member of the artists collective Shahrzad.
 
Shirana Shahbazi - New Good Luck
2019
English edition
Sternberg Press - Monographs and artists' books
A new series of photographic works by Shirana Shahbazi.
Shirana Shahbazi - First Things First
2017
bilingual edition (English / German)
Sternberg Press - Monographs and artists' books
sold out
A non-hierarchical selection of photographic works created over the past ten years by the Iranian artist (catalogue).
Shirana Shahbazi - Tehran North
2016
English edition
JRP|Editions - Artists' books & editions
Shirana Shahbazi's photo-project Tehran North is a subjective road movie captured from a car driving through the Iranian capital at night, offering a black and white kaleidoscopic vision of Tehran's urban landscape (artist's book).
Shirana Shahbazi - Monstera
2014
English edition
JRP|Editions - Artists' books & editions
sold out
Artist's book.
Shirana Shahbazi - Meanwhile
2007
English edition
JRP|Editions - Monographs
sold out
A lavishly illustrated publication focusing on Shirana Shahbazi's photographic works, with essays by Kate Bush, Gianni Jetzer, and Ali Subotnick.
Shirana Shahbazi - Wer drei Mal die gleiche Bar betritt hat ein Zuhause im Stehen
2006
German edition
JRP|Editions - Artists' books & editions
A small book of b/w photographies and texts.


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