Published by Walker Art Center. Edited with text by Pavel S. Pys. Foreword by Mary Ceruti. Text by David Joselit, Oxana Timofeeva. Interview by Brandon Eng.
Spanning the 20-year practice of Canadian artist Abbas Akhavan (born 1977), Variations on a Garden highlights the recurring conceptual concerns manifest across his work—from site-specific ephemeral installations to drawing, video, sculpture and performance. Specifically, the volume explores Akhavan’s engagement with human relations to the natural world, public and private space, and the conservation of heritage sites. In the artist’s corpus, portions of domesticated landscapes, adjacent to or coextensive with the home and archeological sites, are conspicuously situated within the liminal zone of the gallery. Amid the backdrop of white expanse, Akhavan intermingles indexes of artifice, such as green screens or tangled wires, with organic materials and perishable matter such as soil, water and plants. A suite of texts by curators and an interview conducted with the artist delve into the processes and inquiries that inform Akhavan’s practice.
Published by Skira editore. Edited by Amy Zion. Text by Omar Kholeif, Marina Roy.
The book covers the practice of Toronto-based artist examining a body of work over the course of his career.
Abbas Akhavan’s practice ranges from site-specific ephemeral installations to drawing, video and performance. The domestic sphere, as a forked space between hospitality and hostility, has been an on-going area of research in Abbas’s work. More recent works have shifted focus, wandering onto spaces just outside the home – the garden, the backyard and other domesticated landscapes.
Residencies include Foundation Marcelino Botin with Mona Hatoum (Spain), Le Printemps de Septembre (France), Trinity Square Video, Western Front, and Fogo Islands (Canada), The Watermill Center (USA) and The Delfina Foundation (Dubai & London).
Abbas Akhavan