Siah Armajani

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Siah Armajani ( listen ? / I ; born July 10, 1939 in Tehran , Iran ; lives in Minneapolis and St. Paul , Minnesota , USA ) is an Iranian-born, American contemporary sculptor , film artist and architect . He describes himself as a "public artist" , as an artist who works for public space. Audio file / audio sample

Bridge / Ramp, 1994, Stuttgart-Mitte , inner courtyard of LBBW

life and work

Siah Armajani came to the United States in 1960 and became a US citizen. He studied philosophy , anthropology and mathematics .

Armajani's artistic claim of "art in public space" is based on the local conditions and possibilities and the communicative functions that the work of art can and should fulfill in a specific location. With his work he always deals with the problems of the design of the environment and develops his art from a special analysis of the formal and sociocultural conditions that he encounters on site and in the respective situation.

At the invitation of Jean-Christophe Ammann , Armajani created the installation “ Sacco and Vanzetti Reading Room” in 1987 for his first solo exhibition in Europe at the Kunsthalle Basel . The exhibition then moved to the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and the Portikus in Frankfurt am Main. In 1990 Ammann acquired the installation for the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt am Main.

In 1972 he was a participant in the by Harald Szeemann organized Documenta 5 in Kassel in the department Individual mythologies : Film . He was also represented as an artist at Documenta 7 (1982) and Documenta 8 and at Skulptur.Projekte in Münster in 1987.

Siah Armajani designed the Olympic torch for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta , Georgia , USA. He designed numerous projects such as the tower and bridge of New York Staten Island , Round Gazebo in Nice , France, and the Irene-Hixon-Whitney Bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.

He is also known for his project of building houses entirely out of fecal matter to prove that many houses are "crappy anyway" . ( "Most houses are shitty anyway, why not take it a step further" SA).

In 2012 Armajani was elected a member (NA) of the National Academy in New York .

Literature and Sources

  • Exhibition catalog: documenta 5. Survey of Reality - Imagery Today ; Catalog (as a file folder) Volume 1: (Material); Volume 2: (list of exhibits); Kassel 1972
  • documenta archive (ed.); Resubmission d5 - A survey of the archive on documenta 1972 ; Kassel / Ostfildern 2001, ISBN 3-7757-1121-X
  • Catalog: documenta 7 Kassel ; Vol. 1: (visual biographies of the artists); Vol. 2: (Current works of the artists); Kassel 1982 ISBN 3-920453-02-6
  • documenta 8 catalog: Volume 1: Articles; Volume 2: Catalog; Volume 3: artist book; Kassel 1987 ISBN 3-925272-13-5
  • Siah Armajani - Bridge Book, Walker Art Center and the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Minneapolis, 1991
  • Siah Armajani - Art and the Public: The Socialization of the Individual . In: Markus Stegmann: Architectural Sculpture in the 20th Century. Historical aspects and work structures , Tübingen 1995, pages 135–142.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Nationalacademy.org: Living Academicians. Armajani, Siah (accessed March 15, 2015)
personal data
SURNAME Armajani, Siah
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American sculptor and architect
DATE OF BIRTH July 10, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Tehran , Iran