Seher Shah

How is Power related to Architectural Spaces?

• Brianna: Over time, new buildings have gotten classier…they look more modern, nice. That smooth and sharp design conveys a sense that you have to have $$$ to live there.

• Taeron: The bigger the castle/temple, the more power you have. Like the Hagia Sofia (in Istanbul).

• Joie: People tend to furnish their homes with plants and fancy stuff, if you have those plants mounted on the outside, it conveys a sense of wealth and power….because they can afford someone to maintain it.

• Kenny: Size and MATERIAL of building conveys a sense of power and dominance.

• Kai: So if you see a OLDER building…does that mean it can’t be related to wealth/power or Opulence

How is Power related to Architectural Spaces?

• Arvin: “Pretty” architecture shows off like it has power and money (trump hotel). You can tell by the design. – Zenzeee: When a building has bigger windows, bigger beds,

special buttons that do cool things (amenities) – Nyle: this relates to arguments about gentrification…there’s a fear

of things changing/renovating…because if something “looks fancy” there’s a concern that you can’t afford it.

– Ardi: This is kinda like our school compared to others in our building. We got a ceiling design, filtered water, etc.

• Jakara: Looks can be deceiving…just because it looks fancy or powerful doesn’t mean it actually is. Salt and sugar are DIFFERENT!

• Justin: Ancient Greeks using ionic columns to convey power. – Kozak: This is scene in Classical revival arch in America. Also

obelisks from ancient Egypt.

Seher ShahInterior Courtyard 22007, Graphite pencil on white, medium weight, wove paperFrom the Jihad Pop series

Seher Shah

From the Jihad Pop series

Having lived multinationally, between Pakistan, the UK, Belgium, and the US, Shah has absorbed more perspective than most. Her skills brought her to the Rhode Island School of Design and she currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. Combining that experience with her dazzling aesthetic sensibility and draftsmanship, Shah produces drawings that are as smart and relevant as they are beautiful.

Seher Shah

Jean: Seems very meticulous, thinking about different pressures of the graphite she uses.Joie: She doesn’t know exactly where certain things will go in drawings, but she ‘moves’ with the work. Kevin: She knows DA’ limit of how much she can put into her

work before she needs to take a break. -Tots: it’s almost like her designs could get a bit

repetitive…and she needs to refresh. Rasha: at First, I thought her artwork would be strictly digital…but it’s crazy to see that she’s DRAWING this type of meticulous work. Ruhith: Everything she makes seems pre-meditated, it’s mapped out in her head. Sitting on top of the paper, she’s able to really BE in the work. JOIE 2: JUST GOTTA ADD ON: I’m not sure if she thinks her work is going to get repetitive, but she doesn’t want to get lost in the same idea…but to have some variety in her work.

Seher Shah

Ardi: She seems chilled out about her work. The work is complex and classy.

Richard: She sounds like a narratorRaph: Her voice portrays her art in a way…her work doesn’t

have color…just black, gray, white. Zenzee: I disagree…she seems quite relaxed…but she doesn’t

have a specific plan, she works on her art based on her body and emotions as she’s sitting on the paper. Arvin: Just using blacks and whites (and grays!) shows a lot of contrast.her work shows some kind of story.

-kozak: It shows a TREMENDOUS amount of restraint and discipline as an artist to use such colors.

Guzzy: She focuses on the simplicity…the lack of color shows her as an artist, as an observer of the world. Jakara:”she wants to have a new set of eyes when she looks at things”

Seher Shah

Jihad Pop Progression 4 - Interior Courtyard 1. 2006

The title of the show, Jihad Pop engages with two loaded words. They are words that have been loaded by the media to imply that Muslims are extremists and Americans are facile. The black cube (the holy Kaaba) unfolds into a cross; Islamic ornamentation takes on the characteristics of animation or graffiti; architectural traditions destroy each other and reform; childhood snapshots get confused with fairytale – until Shah’s migratory drawings collect her memory into collective symbols familiar to everyone and to none.

Seher Shah

Untitled from The Black Star2007One from a series of 12archival giclee prints

Untitled from The Black Star2007One from a series of 12archival giclee prints

Seher Shah

Seher Shah

Untitled from The Black Star2007One from a series of 12archival giclee prints

Seher Shah

Untitled from The Black Star2007One from a series of 12archival giclee prints

Seher Shah

Untitled from The Black Star2007

One from a series of 12

archival giclee prints

Seher Shah

The Black Star

2007

series of 12

Seher ShahOver the past eight years, the Pakistani-born, New York-based artist Seher Shah has taken inspiration from her training in architecture, combining real and imagined buildings withautobiographically resonant motifs in her large, Escheresquedrawings. Her photographic collages of the same period have followed a similar logic, blending found images of people and landscapes with digitally introduced grids, shapes, and structures.

Seher Shah “My drawings explore the power dynamics of amphitheaters, civic buildings, mortuary architecture, and large-scale housing projects by removing hierarchythrough specific methods of rendering. These events and objects are simultaneously fascinating and perplexing because they show the powerstruggles and aspirations of the context in which they are located.”

What Social issue(s) is this artist dealing

with? How does she raise these

issues?

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Rirkrit TiravanijaThai, born Argentina 1961

untitled (the days of this society is numbered / December 7, 2012)

2014.

Synthetic polymer paint and newspaper on linen

Rirkrit Tiravanija Thai, born Argentina 1961

untitled (the days of this society is numbered / December 7, 2012)2014. Synthetic polymer paint and newspaper on linen

This piece features the mistranslated quote from Guy Debord (a French Marxist from the 1900s), stenciled across a grid of Thai magazine pages that were published on the date of the 85th birthday of King of Thailand, BhumibolAdulyadej, who has been on the throne since 1946.

Rirkrit Tiravanija

Born in Argentina in 1961, Tiravanijais a contemporary artist focusing on social installations that bring people together, such as group meals, readings, etc.

His earlier works involved cooking meals for gallery visitors and his best known series, pad thai, had him cooking meals for gallery visitors.

Tiravanija is also a curator and has organized international shows with other like-minded artists focusing on the ideas of social engagement.

RirkritTiravanija

Demonstration Drawings2009

Rirkrit Tiravanija

Untitled (Free), 1992

In 1992, Rirkrit Tiravanija created an exhibition entitled Untitled (Free) at 303 Gallery in New York. The installation consisted of the artist converting the gallery into a kitchen where he served rice and Thai curry for free, was recreated at MoMA in 2007.

Pad Thai, 1990

Rirkrit Tiravanija

”[with my art] It is not what you see that is important but what takes place betweenpeople.”

What Social issue(s) is this artist dealing

with? How does he raise these

issues?

• .

• .

• .

“I used to come home very late at night and watch TV to forget the daily specials before I’d work on any art. I’d scan the channels. There’s really not much to see. Everything boiled down to the same low level of meaninglessness. Everything was a fragment of a total spectacle: the most horrific news next to the most glamorous gold ring next to the most glamorous celebrity next to cooking oil. News, events, fiction, data, scandals, starving children, etc., are all collapsed into a level of historical inaction- a dark landscape, sterile, meaninglessness…”

Félix González-Torres

Do Now: What does this quote mean to you?