| Maker(s): | Houshiary, Shirazeh; Kosowicz, Peter (printer); The Paragon Press (publisher)
| | Culture: | English, born Iran (1955-); British (1959-); English (1986-)
| | Title: | Untitled from Round Dance
| | Date Made: | 1992
| | Type: | Print
| | Materials: | Color etching from five plates on 450 Zerkall etching paper
| | Measurements: | Frame: 33 1/2 x 33 1/4 x 1 1/2 in; 85.1 x 84.5 x 3.8 cm; Sheet: 30 13/16 x 30 in; 78.3 x 76.2 cm; Plate/Image: 23 3/4 x 23 3/4 in; 60.3 x 60.3 cm
| | Narrative Inscription: | SIGNATURE: verso, lwr. r. (graphite): Shirazeh Houshiary; EDITION: verso, lwr. l. (graphite): 4/20
| | Accession Number: | UM 2023.10.1
| | Credit Line: | Gift of Graham Gund; Nancy and Bruce Goldstein; Fred and Eva Fierst; and Hugh Davies, with additional funds raised through the 2023 UMass Campaign
| | Museum Collection: | University Museum of Contemporary Art at UMASS Amherst
|
|
|
Description:
Overlapping round shapes composed of Arabic script in black on a green ground. One of a set of five colour etchings inspired by the poetry of Sufi mystic Jalal al-Din Rumi.
Label Text:
Shirazeh Houshiary uses fields of color and thin, etched lines to create geometric abstractions through pigment and poetry. In this introspective series, Houshiary invites viewers to meditate upon the connections between her five works of art and five poems by the 13th-century Sufi poet, scholar, and theologian Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī.
The title of this series, Round Dance, may refer to the Sufi whirling dervish dance, which is a form of physical meditation that involves dancing and spinning while reciting devotional prayer. The repeating round forms create intersections between the cosmos, the self, and the meditative rhythms of dance and poetry.
Houshiary was born in Shiraz, Iran and moved to London in 1974 to study at the Chelsea School of Art. During the 1980s, she gained prominence as part of the New British Sculpture Movement. Her multidisciplinary work spans sculpture, painting, installation, and video art, and she often draws upon themes that engage viewers’ perceptions of time, space, and materiality.
Tags:
abstract; geometry; symmetry; circles; poetry; green Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=UM+2023.10.1 |
