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Nairy Baghramian (born 1971) is an Iranian-born German visual artist, of Armenian ethnicity.[1] Since 1984, she has lived and worked in Berlin.[1][2] When the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum selected Baghramian as a finalist for the 2020 Hugo Boss Prize, they described Baghramian’s statues as: "...[Exploring] the workings of the body, gender, and public and private space."[3]
Nairy Baghramian | |
|---|---|
| Born | Նաիրի Բաղրամյան (Armenian)
نائیری باغرامیان (Persian) 1971 (age 52–53) Isfahan, Imperial State of Iran (now Iran) |
| Education | Berlin University of the Arts |
| Movement | Modernism, Abstract art, Post-minimalism, Minimalism |
Baghramian was born in 1971, in Isfahan, Imperial State of Iran (now Iran),[1] the youngest child in an Armenian Iranian family.[4] She and her mother flew to East Berlin in 1984, when she was 13,[5] and later reunited in West Berlin with their family.[1][6] She attended Berlin University of the Arts (Universität der Künste Berlin).[6][7]
In addition to her artistic practice, Baghramian worked at the women’s shelter that her sister Louise co-founded.[8]
Baghramian captures fleeting human poses in traditional materials such as marble and steel.[9] Inspired by dance classes she took as a child, Baghramian recalls her teacher speaking of the need to break down human movement into discrete elements.[3][9] Her work depicts abstract forms of bodies or body parts, often contemplating the brokenness or "prosthetic" relationship between the body and its environment.[10][11] In the Guggenheim video, Baghramian explains that sometimes she builds on the idea of "looking at something and feeling pity for it."[3] In addition, her work creates an interplay between the work itself and the spaces in which it exists.
For the Berlin Biennial she collaborated with ninety-eight-year-old designer Janette Laverrière to create a set for her furniture design.[12][13]
In 2017, Baghramian's exhibition, Déformation Professionnelle was on display in the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst.[14] This exhibition is the culmination of the artist's 18 sets of works from 1999 to 2016.[14] Déformation Professionnelle exhibits the artist's oeuvre while alluding to existing works in her field. By using sculpture elements and photography in a site-responsive practice, she questions the traditional views towards the relationship between the human body's gestures and their functions.[15]
In 2019, Baghramian took part in Performa 19 collaborating with the artist Maria Hassabi. Inspired by the portraits taken by Carlo Mollino in the 1960s, they created Entre Deux Actes (Ménage à Quatre).[16]
In 2021, Baghramian received the 2022 Nasher Prize presented by the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas.[17] She was later a member of the juries that selected Senga Nengudi (2023)[18] and Otobong Nkanga (2024)[19] for the Nasher Prize.
 | This section of a biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. (November 2021) |
- 2019: SOFT POWER, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California, United States;[20]
- 2017: documenta 14, Athens, Greece, and Kassel, Germany;[21]
- 2017: Déformation Professionelle, Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria;
- 2016: S.M.A.K. Museum of Contemporary Art, Ghent, Belgium;
- 2015: Nairy Baghramian: Hand Me Down, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City, Mexico;
- 2014: Sonae/Serralves Project 2014: Nairy Baghramian, Serralves Museum, Porto, Portugal;
- 2014: Nairy Baghramian: French Curve/Slip of the Tongue, Bluhm Family Terrace, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States;
- 2014: Nairy Baghramian: Off the Rack, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, Germany;
- 2013: Retainer, Sculpture Center, Long Island City, New York, United States;
- 2013: Nairy Baghramian: Fluffing the Pillows (Moorings, gurneys, Silos, Mops, News Rack, Railing), MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, United States;
- 2012: Nairy Baghramian: Class Reunion, The Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada;
- 2012: Fluffing the Pillows, Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany
- 2022 - Nasher Prize, Dallas Texas;[17]
- 2020 - Hugo Boss Prize;[22]
- 2016 – Zurich Art Prize, Zurich, Switzerland;[23]
- 2014 – Arnold-Bode Prize, Kassel, Germany;
- 2012 – Hector Prize, Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany;
- 2007 – Ernst Schering Foundation Award
Baghramian has been in a relationship with art dealer Michel Ziegler.[24]
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