Video still of Nazgol Ansarinia on Tehran, 'Neighbourhoods Are Changing So Fast', Courtesy of Artist Cities, co-produced by Tate and The Guardian
Nazgol Ansarinia’s work examines the systems and networks that underpin her daily life such as everyday objects, routines, events and experiences, and the relationship they form to a larger social context. Born and raised in Tehran, Ansarinia’s practice reflects upon tensions between private worlds and the wider socioeconomic realm, and how local iterations of a culture might act as a site for the hopes and fears of those living in a (faltering) globalised world.
Her recent projects, ranging across sculpture, installation, drawing, and video, represent ways of understanding the role of architecture in delineating interior and exterior spaces and private and public spheres.
Detail of Nazgol Ansarinia, Mendings (carpet), 2010
Informed by her interdisciplinary background in art and design, projects range in approach and material to offer a perspective that considers the aesthetic and theoretical implications of vernacular architectural practices within the built environment. Ansarinia’s works are largely observational and technical in their scope, offering insight into the issues that are most pressing and urgent for today’s cities and the populations that inhabit them.
Born in 1979 in Tehran, Nazgol Ansarinia graduated from the London College of Communication in 2001 before taking a Master of Fine Arts at the California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco in 2003.
Detail of Nazgol Ansarinia, Article 55, Pillars, 2016
Solo exhibitions include: C4, Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Liechtenstein (2022); Lakes Drying, Tides Rising, Green Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE (2022); The Room Becomes a Street, curated by Aram Moshayedi, Argo Factory, Tehran, Iran (2020); Demolishing buildings, buying waste, Green Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE (2018); Fragments, Particles and the Mechanisms of Growth, KIOSK, Ghent, Belgium (2017); Surfaces & Solids, Green Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE (2015); The Free Word Center, London, UK (2011); and Interior Renovations, Green Cardamom, London, UK (2011) amongst others.
Selected group exhibitions include: After Rain, Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale 2024, Riyadh, KSA (2024); NGV Triennial, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia (2023); Some seasons: Fereydoun Ave and the Laal Collection, 1959-2019, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai, UAE (2023); Utopian Scenario About Nature, Busan Museum of Contemporary Art, South Korea (2023); Vanishing Point, A selection of works from Pejman collection, Argo Factory, Tehran, Iran (2022); The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT10), Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia (2021); Hungry for Time, curated by Raqs Media Collective, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria (2021); Reflections: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa, The British Museum, London, UK (2021); DEMO, MAK Center, Los Angeles, CA (2020); Fragile Frontiers: Visions on Iran’s in/visible borders, YARAT Centre, Baku, Azerbaijan (2019); Revolution Begins at Home, with Architects Hamed Khosravi and Roozbeh Elias-Azar, Sharjah Architecture Triennial, Sharjah, UAE (2019); The Spark is You: Parasol Unit in Venice, curated by Ziba Ardalan, 58th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2019); Women House, Monnaie de Paris, Paris, France (2017); What We Know that We Don’t Know, KADIST, San Francisco, CA (2017); Planet 9, Kunsthalle Darmstadt, Germany (2017); Variable Dimensions, Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon, Portugal (2017); The Eighth Climate (What Does Art Do?), Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea (2016); and Adventure of the Black Square: Abstract Art and Society 1915-2015, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2015).
She lives and works in Tehran, Iran.
At Green Art Gallery, Dubai, the Iranian artist Nazgol Ansarinia reimagines the city’s urban decay in various shades of blue.
As her new show opens at Dubai's Green Art Gallery, the artist sheds light on the fast-changing nature of Tehran's architecture and cityscape, as well as her own quest to find home in the Iranian capital.
The sculptural works of the Tehran-based artist, Nazgol Ansarinia, revisit the capital of Iran to underscore the ironies of urban development.
Talking about a city is never easy and always personal. But what if the city you want to talk about is so complex that there are truly no words to properly describe it? Would you fall silent or search for a way to make yourself understood? Nazgol Ansarinia chose the latter. Her approach? Art.
Although these are endlessly difficult times in Iran, both economically and politically, the Iranian capital still shows vibrant signs of cultural life. In an old downtown brewery- turned-art foundation is the fantastic post-industrial site for Argo Factory’s latest show – a palimpsest of the past and pointer for the future.
This list of artists brings together emerging and established Iranian artists working within the country and beyond its borders. Their work offers a fresh introduction to this exciting and underrecognized art scene.
Hannah Jacobi writes about THE SPARK IS YOU: Parasol Unit in Venice, how contemporary Iranian art spans wider influences and art historical representations. The Spark Is You turns to poetry as a lens through which to see Iranian cultural connectivity among the works in the show.
In her work, Nazgol Ansarinia is constantly articulating the disappearance of physical (and public) spaces, not only as a question of functional urbanism but also as a phenomenon of internal displacement.
Iranian artist Nazgol Ansarinia’s work interrogates everyday objects to forge a dialogue with contemporary life in Iran. Tahereh Sariban speaks with the artist in Tehran about her new video works.
Riffing off a vernacular mural tradition, one artist captures the contrasts and contradictions of life in contemporary Tehran.
Nazgol Ansarinia's practice interrogates the current realities of life in Tehran, referencing rapid change and vanishing traditions.
Myrna Ayad reviews Nazgol Ansarinia's Surfaces + Solids exhibition at Green Art Gallery, Dubai.
Published by the Pavillon de l'Arsenale in Paris, the publication Artists and Architecture: Variable Dimensions looks at how the artists's practice stimulates architecture.
Artsy's 50 gallery exhibitions not-to-miss, from Copenhagen to Cape Town, New York to Shanghai.
The Tehran-based artist rethinks, reworks and recasts everyday objects and juxtaposes them against daily life. Lemma Shehadi speaks with Nazgol Ansarinia, who takes things apart before drawing conclusions.
Middle Eastern artists such as Nazgol Ansarinia link Modernism with Arabic and Persian decorative arts.
Exploring the mutual fascination between Iran and Europe through art in Switzerland.
Rising star Nazgol Ansarinia has turned fantastical murals commissioned by the Iranian state into a series of absurdist, arresting architectural models made using a 3D printer.
Five women artists deconstruct the process of photography to illustrate how biases, viewpoints and motives tend to tint reality.
Daniela da Prato from Contemporary Practices takes a close look at Nazgol Ansarinia's different bodies of work.
Nazgol Ansarinia’s work explores the patterns and structures of modern day life. She seeks to portray intangible aspects of social, physical and emotional interactions within the framework of society.
If anxiety is the background hum of our existence, Nazgol Ansarinia is listening very carefully. Over the past fifteen years, she has been producing sharp, understated works that turn up the volume on the unsettling.
