Background
Siavash Armajani was born in 1939 in Tehran. In 1960, Armajani immigrated to the United States to attend college, as he had family living there.
1600 Grand Ave, St Paul, MN 55105, United States
Siah Armajani attended Macalester College in Minnesota, where he studied philosophy.
Siavash Armajani was born in 1939 in Tehran. In 1960, Armajani immigrated to the United States to attend college, as he had family living there.
The artist’s education in Western thought and philosophy began in Tehran, where he attended a Presbyterian school for Iranian students and continued through his undergraduate years in the United States. Siah Armajani attended Macalester College in Minnesota, where he studied philosophy.
Siah Armajani lives and works in Minneapolis. His sculptures, drawings and public works exist between the boundaries of art and architecture, informed by democratic and populist ideals. Early theoretical interests continue to influence his work, taking form in objects and architectural spaces designed in homage to literary, philosophical, and political figures like Martin Heidegger, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Theodor Adorno, Ahmad Shamlou, and Alfred Whitehead.
American vernacular architecture has been a consistent visual motif in Armajani’s practice and is manifest in his public works, including bridges, gardens, and outdoor structures. These concerns take form in his ongoing series titled “Reading Rooms and Reading Gardens”, as well as public spaces, pavilions and shelters for social exchanges or solitary meditation. Armajani’s “Tombs series” (1972 – 2016) references both American modernist and vernacular architecture, playing tribute to figures including Walt Whitman, John Berryman, Nicola Sacco, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, amongst others.
He was commissioned to design the Cauldron for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. The artist has been the subject of more than fifty solo exhibitions since 1978, including surveys and retrospectives at Parasol unit, London (2013), the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City (2008), etc.
His work has also been featured in group exhibitions, including Passages in Modern Art: 1954 – 1966, Dallas Museum of Art (2016), Cycle Des histoires sans fin, séquence automne - hiver 2015 – 2016, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Geneva (2015), Art Expanded, 1958 – 1978 and Art at the Center: 75 Years of Walker Collections, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2014), and many others.
His 2005 work, "Fallujah", is a modern take on Picasso's Guernica but has been censored in the U.S. due to its critical view of the war in Iraq.
Shirt
1959Calligraphy
1964Bridge over a Tree
1970A Number Between Zero and One
1970Dictionary for Building Stairs No. 5
1976Sacco and Vanzetti Reading Room No. 1
1994Glass Room
2000Fallujah
2005Tomb for Neema
2012Tomb for Frank O'Hara
2014Tomb for Richard Rorty
2016Tomb for Dietrich Bonhoeffer
2016The artist has always been outspoken about political events and his oeuvre shows no lack of politically charged subject matter. When the artist gave a talk in Hong Kong, he was asked about how he would respond justly to the rise of Donald J. Trump, whose political platform includes a fervent anti-immigration sentiment. Ever outspoken, Armajani said, succinctly and without hesitation, that he would build a bridge to Mexico.
The architecture and public art of the Iranian-born American artist Siah Armajani embrace both grace and humility. In Armajani’s work, sobriety and aesthetic formalism produce art that aims at inclusivity. The artist has always championed public art as a noble practice and his work is deeply engaged with philosophers who have written on this theme, above all Walter Benjamin, Fredric Jameson and Henri Lefebvre. He often directly refers or pays homage to the critical thinkers who have informed him.
Armajani’s work, like the poetry that occupies an important space in his life, is concerned with its place within the cosmos. The cultural context of each piece is intrinsic: in a sense, the essence of his practice is social. Each bridge, reading room and gazebo is thus conceptually related to the notion of democracy itself: a contemporary version of the agora, in which people can, and should, voice their opinions and collectively decide on their fate, or at least have space to do so.
Armajani argues that artistic creation is more than just a vehicle for personal expression and considers public art as civic art. He aims for and insists on the use of sculpture for the service of urban experience, like a sculpture embedded in community life, while stressing its social function and anti-monumental character.
Quotations:
“I am interested in the nobility of usefulness. My intention is to build open, available, useful, common, public gathering places – gathering places that are neighborly."
"All buildings and all streets are ornaments. Moreover, the lighthouse and bridge give a place to the representational arts of poetry, music, and performing. By embracing all of the arts, the lighthouse and bridge assert its own perspective everywhere."
"Most houses are shitty anyway, why not take it a step further."