The Facade Commission: Nairy Baghramian, Scratching the Back at The Met, September 7, 2023 – May 28, 2024
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“The Met unveiled four new sculptures by Nairy Baghramian (German citizen, born Iran 1971) for the Museum’s facade. This is the first public installation by the artist in New York City. Baghramian’s cast aluminum polychrome sculptures feature components that seem to have washed up like flotsam and jetsam in the voids of their respective niches. These abstract forms at the threshold of the Museum present a metaphor of the institution as a filter of historical fragments deemed representative or exemplary. The project’s title Scratching the Back—a distortion of the idiom ‘scratch the surface’—alludes to the need to move beyond superficially constructed cultural narratives.” — The Met
Nairy Baghramian (German, born Iran, 1971). Installation view of Scratching the Back: Drift (sans Tortillon), 2023, for The Facade Commission: Nairy Baghramian, Scratching the Back, 2023. Cast and powder-coated aluminum, painted aluminum. Courtesy the artist, kurimanzutto, and Marian Goodman Gallery. Image credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photo by Bruce Schwarz.Nairy Baghramian (German, born Iran, 1971) Installation view of Scratching the Back: Drift (Tortillon orange), 2023, for The Facade Commission: Nairy Baghramian, Scratching the Back, 2023. Cast and powder-coated aluminum, painted aluminum. Courtesy the artist, kurimanzutto, and Marian Goodman Gallery. Image credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photo by Bruce Schwarz.Nairy Baghramian (German, born Iran, 1971) Installation view of Scratching the Back: Drift (Tortillon rose), 2023, for The Facade Commission: Nairy Baghramian, Scratching the Back, 2023. Cast and powder-coated aluminum, painted aluminum. Courtesy the artist, kurimanzutto, and Marian Goodman Gallery. Image credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photo by Bruce Schwarz.Nairy Baghramian (German, born Iran, 1971) Installation view of Scratching the Back: Drift (Tortillon jaune), 2023, for The Facade Commission: Nairy Baghramian, Scratching the Back, 2023. Cast and powder-coated aluminum, painted aluminum. Courtesy the artist, kurimanzutto, and Marian Goodman Gallery. Image credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photo by Bruce Schwarz.
Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and CEO, said, “Nairy Baghramian creates expressive, daring, site-specific works that both deeply engage with and question their settings. Defying traditional conventions of sculpture, the artist’s colorful abstract forms appear to spill out from The Met’s sculpture niches—in stark contrast to the monochrome classical architecture of the facade. Her bold yet fragile structures manifest powerfully composed transformations of space, material, and physical relationships.”
