The New Gotham Ballroom: One night only! June 8th
Join us for our annual spring gala, The New Gotham Ballroom, a pop-up 1930s era night-club at the Stan Mansion with dinner by Chef Jared Wentworth and Longman & Eagle. Tickets on sale now!
threewalls calendar - January 2010
Event Archive:
- February 2012
- January 2012
- October 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- January 2011
- November 2010
- September 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
Fri, Jan 15
Armita Raafat
January 15 – February 13, 2010
Exhibition Opening: Friday, January 15, 6:00-9:00 PM
Artist Talk: Thursday, February 4, 6:00 PM
The New Year begins at threewalls with a SOLO exhibition by Chicago-based artist, Armita Raafat. The first exhibitor in our newly expanded and renovated gallery, Raafat’s installation subtly transforms the 'pristine' gallery, drawing on the wall with mirror, paint, plaster, cardboard, papier mache and cloth to sculpt a crumbling architecture from Middle Eastern structures, patterns and motifs.
Referencing Islamic and Persian architecture, Raafat applies ornament in a state of ruin, often to the perimeter of the site, with patterns spreading, dripping and crumbling from corner to floor. For this exhibition, Raafat specifically refers to Muqarnas (moo-raan-naas), an element developed simultaneously (and apparently independently) in 10th Century North Eastern Iran and Central North Africa. Unlike other elements, Muqarnas has no intrinsic limits, with no finite unit of composition it is therefore changeable and expansive, leaving the builder “free” to use the Muqarnas at the discretion of their design.
Although Raafat’s current work speaks to her personal experience – growing up in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, as well as the current political strife in both her homeland and the Middle East in general – it also acts as a powerful and universal metaphor for cultural ruin. With the gallery acting as diorama, architecture and ornament, heroics and beauty, are pushed and clinging to the margins, creating a spectacular tension in Raafat’s subtle staging as what is at once glorious and precious, is re-created, re-obliterated, re-revealed and re-destroyed.
Armita Raafat was a 2009 recipient of the Swing Space Residency with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York. She has previously exhibited at the Sullivan Galleries at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Ah! Decadence exhibition and with 12 x 12 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. She was featured in Portrait of an Artist in NewCity in 2009. Raafat received her MFA in Painting and Drawing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Join us Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 6:00 PM for an artist talk with Raafat, to hear more about her influences and direction.