Shirana Shahbazi

Jury Statement

Shirana Shahbazi’s artistic practice has been widely described and discussed by international critics and exhibited in museums, galleries, and biennials around the world. The images created by the Iranian-born artist poetically and precisely combine themes as varied as the subjectivity of intimacy, the experience of travel, and reflection on identity. The complexity and stratification of her work reaches its apex in her exhibitions, where it becomes clear that she views images as a network built around contrasts and assonances. Shirana Shahbazi also seems to seek pure beauty in her work, understood as a dimension that we should not be afraid of and that can surprise us, because it is inherent in the contrast of brightly colored gallery walls or the density of the urban grid in an Asian city. In Shirana Shahbazi, the Federal Art Commission honors an artist who has successfully revitalized the contemporary photographic idiom, widening the frontiers of the medium and developing a poetic view of the outside world and everyday objects.