Vanessa Safavi
Of Iranian, French and Swiss descent Vanessa Safavi was born in 1980 in Lausanne, Switzerland.
In her work, Safaviconjures contrasting polarities of cultural concepts by appropriating its visual language ofsigns and materials. Lately, her work has increasingly focused on the body addressingconceptual systems of language and personal narratives she explores and questions thecontemporary identity of the body in the constant optimisation of technologies and its culturalimpacts in our hyper-organised societies that has definitely driven it to a new sphere ofidentity and to a complex, vulnerable and schizophrenic fragility. Her work recalls the fragilityof our bodies and the poetry that emerges from them.
Her most recent solo exhibitions include; The Approach, London (CONDO with The Breeder)FRI-ART Centre d’Art, Fribourg, Fürstenbergischen Sammlungen Donaueschingen, “Turnsand Returned” The Breeder, Athens (2018), “The Cook and the Smoke Detector”,ChertLüdde, Berlin (2017), “Medullla Plaza”, Kunstverein Grafschaft, Bentheim (2016),“Amygdala”, The Breeder Playroom, Athens (2015), “Airbags”, MOTINTERNATIONAL,Brussels (2015), “cloud metal cities”, Kunsthalle São Paulo, Sao Paolo (2014), “La NuitLiquide”, The Breeder, Athens (2014); “Οne Torino“, Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2013),Kunsthaus Glarus, “After the Monument Comes the People”, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (2012),“I Wish Blue could be Water”, CRAC Alsace (2012), “Les Figures Autonomes”, CentreCulturel Suisse, Paris (2011).Vanessa Safavi is a recipient of the 2012 Illy Present/FuturePrize and has exhibited internationally since 2010.
Selected group shows: Objects like us, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield,USA (2018), Meaning can only grow out of intimacy (Limbs, Water, Nostalgia), curated byElise Lammer, Les Urbaines – 20th edition, Lausanne (2016), Che il vero possa confutare ilfalso, AgiVerona Collection, Palazzo Pubblico/Santa Maria della Scala/Accademia deiFisiocritici, Sienna, curated by Luigi Fassi and Alberto Salvadori (2016), Inflected Objects # 2Circulation – Mise en Séance, Frans Hals Museum | De Hallen Haarlem, Netherlands(2016), The transparent tortoiseshell and the un-ripe umbrella, Glasgow Sculpture Studios,Glasgow (2016), Swiss Art Awards, Basel (2015), milk revolution, curated by Ilaria Marottaand Andrea Baccin, American Academy, Rome (2015), Emmy Moore’s Journal, curated byQuinn Latimer, SALTS, Basel (2013), Strange Comfort (Afforded by the Profession), curatedby Adam Szymczyk and Salvatore Lacagnina in collaboration with Annette Amberg andRoos Gortzak, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (2010).
