Shirana Shahbazi at Kunstmuseum Luzern, from sediment photography

The career of the Iranian photographer Shirana Shahbazi, born in 1974 in Tehran, trained in Germany and Switzerland (at the Fachhochschule Dortmund and the Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst in Zurich) and currently residing in the latter city, has been characterized by her constant attention to the mechanisms that construct the image, but also by her multiple turns based on that common denominator: she has developed in modest and imposing formats, in very diverse geographical locations, and normally articulates his compositions according to arrangements that vary in each of his exhibitions, organizing them from parameters similar to those of the edition and without fear of superposition. Thus, the meaning of each one of them varies depending on the one next to it.

Among its sources of influence are from the history of photography itself to advertising; In fact, it is not strange that his works take the form of posters, which further influence his interest in the operations of displacement and reuse of images, or that of rugs that, arranged on the wall, emphasize the possible domestic and decorative aspect – one among many – of these proposals.

Shirana Shahbazi. (Stilleben-33-2009)2009. Courtesy of the artist and Peter Kilchmann, Zürich, Paris

Shirana Shahbazi. teacher2019. Courtesy of the artist and Peter Kilchmann, Zürich, Paris

After a prolific harvest of recognitions in recent years – in 2019 it won the Prix Meret Oppenheim, the most prestigious in Switzerland regarding the visual arts; in 2022, with the Mutina Art Prize; and, last year, with the Prix de la Société des Arts of Geneva -, Shahbazi, who also teaches at the ZHdK in Zurich and the EPFL in Lausanne, offers the exhibition «All at Once. An Interplay with Li Tavor. It is a compendium of past and recent projects in which this author examines the dualities of her medium, such as its accuracy in representing durable reality and its ability to capture the ephemeral, using techniques that we could also consider opposite: from traditional analog cameras to Ektachrome printing and screen printing. His work ranges from abstract compositions close to painterly aesthetics to striking, carefully staged portraits and spontaneous documentary-style captures of the people and places he encounters along his path. Whether constructed or fortuitous, these prints reflect a common compositional precision and cosmopolitan sensibility, the fruit of his travels through Europe, Japan, India and Iran.

Shirana Shahbazi. Spiegel2014. Courtesy of the artist and Peter Kilchmann, Zürich, Paris

With a conception that is often closer to painting than to conventional photography, his large-format pieces are characterized by an acute sensitivity to light, space and compositional order: his use of vibrant fields of color and marked contrasts in black and white demonstrates his good knowledge of the formal keys of image creation, in the same way that his exhibitions respond to his structural approaches; They are meticulously staged and usually include, as is the case, murals, photographic posters, chromatic fields and, more recently, ceramic surfaces, becoming immersive installations in themselves.

In addition to the aforementioned portraits, he creates still lifes, urban views and landscapes, as well as simple surfaces of pure color, such as backgrounds without a visible subject, halfway between the empirical and the simulacrum. We can say that it approaches the photographic genre from a decidedly conceptual perspective, questioning the reality that the lens immortalizes by imagining completely invented fictional stories in its snapshots, from their capture or from their montage. Playing with sizes or sudden changes in scale, and transposing photographic images to other supports, he subverts the viewer’s expectations and explores the complexity of what is given to the gaze: sometimes, subjects and scenes intermingle without the public being able to clearly distinguish places, countries or origins. Thus, the Iranian refutes and disrupts any precise sense of cultural identity; His visual essays are part of the representation of the globalization of contemporary photography.

This exhibition includes, and hence its title, works by Li Tavor and Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Tavor responds to the architecture of the exhibition through latex panels that hang from the ceiling and that, depending on our viewing angle, we may have the sensation of superimposing the works of Shahbazi displayed on the wall. In this way, a three-dimensional dialogue is structured that the public can experience spatially.