Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: A Mirrored Garden

In its origins, the word "geometry" literally means "to measure the earth." But for Sufi theologians and Monir, the task was less to measure the earth than to identify, within the earthly realm, manifestations of a divine natural order. Of particular importance to Monir was the hexagon, and this six-sided form is the foundational building block of much of her work. "For me," the artist has said, "everything starts with the hexagon. In the hexagon, there are so many different lines, and so many different shapes, and so many different colors, and it has a lot of variation in every form of geometry."

Evident throughout Monir's works, is her deep love of Iran and its culture. Since the 1950s, the artist was an ardent student and collector of the crafts and traditions of her home, from coffee house paintings to Turkoman jewelry and textiles.

Gabbeh (2009), a composition of colorful polygons, arcs and diagonals against a background of mirror and plaster triangles formed by overlapping hexagons, is named after a type of Persian rug. In Monir's Kashi series, the final works created before her death in 2019, mirrored glass mosaics — in the form of intersecting triangles, squares, or pentagons — are framed by colorful shards of lustrous ceramic embedded in snowy white plaster. The ceramic pieces are contemporary examples of lustreware — a type of pottery or porcelain with a metallic glaze that gives the effect of iridescence, produced in Iran since the 12th century — created by Persian ceramist Abbas Akbari.

"Revealing the plaster opened a whole new vista of possibilities. The snowy matte surfaces made a beautiful contrast with the glistening mirror, like earth and water distilled into two different faces of purity, the colors of painted-glass accents gleamed with startling clarity against the white."

Monir first received significant attention in 1958, when she was awarded a gold medal for her work in the Iranian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, leading to exhibitions in Tehran, Paris, and New York. More recently, her artwork has been the subject of two traveling career retrospectives: Infinite Possibility. Mirror Works and Drawings 1974–2014 at the Guggenheim Museum, New York (2015) and The Serralves Museum, Porto, Portugal (2014); and Sunset, Sunrise at the Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE (2019) and Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2018).

Monir's works have additionally been exhibited at major institutions worldwide, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and the Centre Pompidou, Paris (upcoming, 2021); Grand Rapids Art Museum, MI (2020, 2018); Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, VA (2017); Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2016); Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, UAE (2014); Prospect 3, New Orleans, LA (2014); Sharjah Biennial 11, UAE (2013); WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels, Belgium (2013); Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany (2010); the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland, Australia (2010); and the 29th Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil (2009). She is the subject of a substantial monograph, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Cosmic Geometry, edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist; the co-author of an autobiography, A Mirror Garden (Knopf, 2007); and the focus of an eponymous documentary film. Monir’s work has been collected by institutions around the world, including: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY and Abu Dhabi, UAE; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; and Tate Modern, London, U.K. In December 2017, the Monir Museum, the first museum in Iran dedicated to a single female artist, opened in Tehran. Throughout her life, Monir was known in international art circles as a visionary, charismatic, and uncompromising artist.