Aphrodite Desiree Navab “Super East-West Woman: Forty Pillars”
Soho20 Chelsea Gallery
This event has ended.
In her solo exhibition Super East-West Woman: Forty Pillars, Aphrodite Désirée Navab performs as a pillar, marking each of her forty years of life. Like the sculpted female figures, the Caryatids, of the Acropolis’ Erechtheion in Athens (421-407 BC), Super East-West Woman is both the literal column and the metaphorical support, carrying the weight of her Greek and Iranian heritage on her head: a history of both war and peace. In each of the ten photographs of the installation, Super East-West Woman’s veiled back is linked to the reflection of her face in the glass of the retired Tramway cabins of her permanent home in the United States which has severed diplomatic relations with Iran. These cabins have been replaced by new ones that are busy taking passengers back and forth on cables suspended in air from Manhattan to Roosevelt Island in New York City. The 20 instances of Super East-West Woman in the photographs are reflected in mirrors, creating 40 representations of her. The installation re-enacts the architecture of the Chehel Sotun (Forty Columns in Farsi, 1664 AD) palace of Navab’s native city Isfahan, Iran, where 20 actual columns meet 20 reflected columns in a pool of water in front of the palace, creating 40 columns in the imagination and giving it its name. After thirty years of taking Navab back and forth since she relocated from Iran as a ten year-old, the Tramway has become her portable Chehel Sotun, the exiled palace of a nomad.
Media
Schedule
from September 06, 2011 to October 01, 2011
Opening Reception on 2011-09-08 from 18:00 to 20:00