Farhang Foundation and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco were thrilled to welcome renowned artists AFRUZ AMIGHI to this latest edition of #FarhangConnect for AFRUZ AMIGHI: To Those Whom No One Owns. A conversation with Naz Cuguoglu, assistant curator of contemporary art and programs at the Asian Art Museum. Ms. Amighi discussed her prolific career and works of art, including her upcoming monumental commissioned project by the Asian Art Museum.
About Afruz Amighi:
Afruz Amighi was born in Tehran, Iran in 1974. She studied Political Science at Barnard College and completed her M.F.A. at New York University.
Amighi’s artistic practice spans large-scale installation, sculpture, drawing, performance, and poetry. Her objects and installations play with light and shadow to explore the poetics of space. Adjacent to architecture and ornament, Amighi’s work adapts a wide range of industrial materials, ranging from steel and concrete to jewelry chain and glass, which are then illuminated to activate the sensation of the sacred that dwells within the ordinary. Inspired by the cathedral, the mosque, the tomb, and the shrine, the artist has likened her structures to abodes. Their liminal spaces retrieve diverse histories and outwardly incongruent cultures, inviting the viewer to imagine “structures that have a relationship to the past but have not yet been realized.” As one time is folded over another, a path opens to the enchantment so prematurely eclipsed by secular modernity.
Amighi is the inaugural recipient of the Jameel Prize in 2009 and her work is held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Houston Museum of Fine Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and The Morgan Museum and Library, among others.
She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Learn more about AFRUZ AMIGHI by visiting www.afruzamighi.com/
Learn more about the ASIAN ART MUSEUM and all our current and upcoming programs by visiting: asianart.org/
Watch all of Farhang Foundation's #FarhangConnect virtual talks now by visiting farhang.org/connect/