Business of Home: Artist Amir Nikravan explores modernist ideals

Four years ago, Los Angeles–based artist Amir Nikravan began experimenting with the glyphs of a postwar building in Pasadena, setting off an ongoing conceptual exploration of the legacy of modernist design in his own work. Next week, when designers flock to the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood for Westweek, a two-day industry celebration full of panels and programming, Nikravan will be there to share his story.

“I became really interested in how all of the language around Modernism, with a capital M, was demeaning toward Orientalism, but how the white masters of the movement were able to appropriate these motifs,” explains Nikravan, who is half Iranian, half Mexican, and a native Angeleno. “If I were to do it as a person of color, it would be decorative, the sinful word of Modernism. So I started to reappropriate those motifs in sculptural assemblage that exist both in sculpture and on the wall.”

 

Some of the sculptures are placed on clear pedestals that reference the floor plans—and, indeed, the problematic history—of glass house architecture.

 

 

Read the full article here.

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March 13, 2019