Nairy Baghramian
Visual Art
Nairy Baghramian’s exhibition "Es ist ausser Haus" (It is outside of the house) at the Kunsthalle Basel in 2006 was the artist's first solo show in a public institution.
"Es ist ausser Haus" visualized how Nairy Baghramian includes elements of furniture design, set design, and fashion in her work. Her still lives in space involve references to material history, recontextualized and turned into political statements, pieces referring to literature and theatre. The exhibition was an installation using mirror structures, photography, and architecture to define the exhibition space. A series of fixed vantage points offered possibilities to reflect the installation.
Her works were exhibited in several group exhibitions among others in Scotland, U.K., Germany, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, and Italy.
The topic Baghramian is working on during her stay at Villa Aurora relates to the structure of “Es ist ausser Haus.”
Baghramian wishes to discover which topics of Early Modernism did not transmit to the new homeland of emigrated architects from Europe. Starting point is the construct of “Home,” a concept framing the burdens and chances of creative personalities who came to America voluntarily in the beginning of the 20th century (like Richard Neutra and Rudolph Schindler) and those who were forced to begin a new life abroad during the time of the National Socialists.
Her research sets the basis for a room installation of quasi-modernist objects in a constructive arrangement.