MALIHEH AFNANTONIGHT, THE DOORS TOWARD WORDS WILL BE OPENED
[Sohrab Sepehri]
September 6 - November 8 2014
Opening: Sat 6 Sept | 6-9 pm

Dear ladies and gentlemen,

Maliheh Afnan (b. 1935) is a poet of lines, of earthen colors and iconic signs. In her often small-scale works, the artist creates dreamlike scenes of a perfect language; delicate palimpsests that evoke lost childhood memories and stir up the unexposed. The artist creates an écriture automatique beyond legibility. She writes her paintings, right or left-aligned, as contemporary pictorial quotes of an Antiquity that can no longer be found in any language. Her works are hieroglyphic ruins of ancient landscapes, faces of exile, a visual poetry in the tradition of Persian and Arabic calligraphy reflecting an immense, magical beauty that resists the withdrawal of this tradition.

Maliheh Afnan's works evoke Paul Klee's poetic miniature works of paper and are reminiscent of the work of Mark Tobey, to whom the artist felt closely related.

Maliheh Afnan was born to Iranian parents in Haifa. She lived in Beirut, Washington, Kuwait, and spent more than 23 years in Paris. The artist has been living and working in London since 1997.

The works of Maliheh Afnan have been exhibited internationally and are shown in a number of prestigious museums and collections, including The Metropolitan Museum in New York; The British Museum in London and the Institut du monde arabe in Paris.

Maliheh Afnan, "Tonight, The Door Towards Words Will be Opened", is curated by Shulamit Buckstein Çoruh. The catalog Maliheh Afnan: “Tonight, the Door Towards Words Will be Opened”, will be published on the occasion of the exhibition, edited by Galerie Kornfeld. With a preface by the curator Shulamit Buckstein Çoruh and contributions from Maliheh Afnan, Lutz Becker, Eva Beierheimer & Miriam Laussegger, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Sohrab Sepehri.

The exhibition at Galerie Kornfeld shows about twenty new works by the artist. The works are accompanied by a light installation by the Viennese artist duo Eva Beierheimer & Miriam Laussegger with poetic fragments of the Iranian poet Sohrab Sepehri (1928-1980) and a motto of the Persian scholar Shams-e Tabrizi (1185-1248).

For questions or further information please do not hesitate to contact us. We will be happy to send you printable pictures or other images on request.

Sincerely,

Dr. Tilman Treusch

Contact

Dr. Tilman Treusch
[email protected]

GALERIE KORNFELD
Kunsthandel GmbH & Co KG
Fasanenstrasse 26
10719 Berlin
Germany

Tel +49 30 889 225 890

Fax +49 30 889 225 899


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