Her parents fled Iran. Her art tells their story Iranian-American artist Sheida Soleimani tells her family history through her photography, after years of creating political works Lilah Raptopoulos May 12, 2023 This is an audio transcript of the FT Weekend podcast episode: ‘Her parents fled Iran. Her art tells their story’ Sheida Soleimani So we see this photographic image of this mud brick-looking house in the ruins. You know, it looks a little in shambles. These are…Read More
Eyes on Iran at FDR Four Freedoms Park Looks to the UN By Ilana Herzig January 6, 2023 In early December, over 300 volunteers crowded onto the lawn of New York’s Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms State Park, designed by Louis Kahn. The crowd gathered to form a waving embodiment of the free-flowing hair of Nika Shahkarami, a 16-year-old girl found dead after joining a protest in Tehran in September over the death, in police custody, of Mahsa Amini. As part…Read More
Artist Sheida Soleimani The world must keep our eyes on the brave citizens of Iran and open to the possibility of justice. We have our #EyesonIran and stand in solidarity with the movement to remove the Islamic Republic of Iran from the Commission for the Status of Women. Sign the petition at bit.ly/IRIoffCSW EYES ON IRAN ART ACTIVATION FACES THE UN IN NEW YORK CITY November 28, 2022 Speakers: Hilary Rodham Clinton, Gissou Nia, Sheida Soleimani, Shirin Neshat…Read More
Sheida Soleimani’s Art Is for the Birds The artist’s home and studio in Providence, R.I., is, among other things, a wildlife clinic. By Marisa Mazria-Katz Aug. 9, 2022 Sheida Soleimani speaks the language of birds, deftly contorting her lips and breath to recite lilting sounds with distinct avian fluency. As far as the Iranian American artist is concerned, it’s her second language after Farsi. “Before I could speak English, I used to listen to bird sounds on tape,” says Soleimani,…Read More
By Dr. Jordan Amirkhani Portrait of Sheida Soleimani during the installation of her solo exhibition at Providence College Galleries as part of the “On The Wall” series. Photo by Mel Taing for Boston Art Review. “The exile knows that in a secular and contingent world, homes are always provisional.[…] Seeing ‘the entire world as a foreign land’ makes possible originality of vision. Most people are principally aware of one culture, one setting, one home; exiles are aware of…Read More
By Pearl Fontaine May 4, 2022 The New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) returns to New York City for its 8th edition, which will be open at Pier 36 from May 5—8. Here, fairgoers will find exhibitions from 120 international presenters, along with a program featuring conversations, performances, and other events. Sheida Soleimani, “Cloud Busting,” 2022, 40 x 30 in, archival pigment print; courtesy of the artist and Denny Dimin Gallery. Highlights to look out for in the…Read More
Critique and Care: Sheida Soleimani Interviewed by Cassie Packard Photomontages that expose power and brutality. Sheida Soleimani’s collapsed images teem with signification. The Iranian American artist, who lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island, constructs elaborate tableaux that incorporate an array of symbolic objects (bubble gum, toilet paper) and found source imagery (aerial views of oil fields, crooked politicians’ gesturing hands). Compressed into two-dimensional photographs with the seductive gloss of an internet aesthetic, these scenes deliver searing critiques of global systems…Read More
The opening of Ariana Papademetropolous’s solo exhibition included the release of domestic doves into the city, where they are susceptible to predators and malnourishment. by Sarah Rose Sharp September 15, 2021 Some images below depict birds injured as a result of being released into environments to which they are ill-suited to survive. The ethical conundrum of using live animals as art materials is not a new issue in the art world — a place where aesthetics are considered a cause worth dying…Read More
Fun can take many forms. An end-of-day ice cream ritual. Caring for rescued chickens. A bubble bath for an inanimate friend. Three photographers show us what a good time means to them now. Produced by Jolie Ruben and Amanda Webster / Interviews by Raillan Brooks Sheida Soleimani Sheida Soleimani, a Providence, R.I., photographer, says she began doing “tedious but beautiful work, like picking dandelions from the ground, separating the petals from the calyx and putting them in an airlock-sealed jar with yeast to ferment.”…Read More
Sheida Soleimani was commissioned by the New York Times to consider what fun looks like now. This image was taken by Soleimani, who said she began doing “tedious but beautiful work, like picking dandelions from the ground, separating the petals from the calyx, and putting them in an airlock-sealed jar with yeast to ferment.” Soleimani started taking film photographs like this one “to document these forays and efforts to explore whatever we were doing one week to another.”
by Camryn Drabenstadt April 2nd, 2021 Sheida Soleimani is an Iranian-American artist who makes artwork at the intersection of installation, sculpture, and photography, which deals with themes of power, materiality, and violence in the context of American conflict in the Middle East. Soleimani speaks with Silver Eye Scholar and Point Park University Senior Camryn Drabenstadt her about her new work, Levers of Power, which was shown in a solo-exhibition at Denny Dimin Gallery in New York City in November and December of 2020. Camryn Drabenstadt: How has…Read More
Denny Dimin Gallery Announces Representation of Sheida Soleimani Denny Dimin Gallery is honored to announce the representation of artist Sheida Soleimani. Born to political refugees who fled Iran in the mid-1980s, Soleimani builds photographic tableaux that dramatize Middle Eastern geopolitics, satirizing the reporting of West and East alike. In working across form and medium—especially photography, sculpture, collage, and film—she often appropriates source images from popular/digital media and resituates them within defamiliarizing tableaux. The composition depends on the question at hand. For example,…Read More
Sheida Soleimani B. 1990, Indianapolis, Indiana. Lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island. —Isabelle Sakelaris The daughter of politically engaged Iranian refugees, Sheida Soleimani creates works that address world events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and violence against women, by examining power structures through a feminist lens. In an interview with the British Journal of Photography, Soleimani remarked, “I consider my work a feminist practice, because it’s associated with the so-called female practices of cutting, making, and even care-taking.” Whether using found material…Read More
Women Artists of New England: Sheida Soleimani Hall Rockefeller As a photographer who captures images of elaborate stage-like sets, Sheida Soleimani is engaged with contradictory modes. Photography is a medium whose authenticity we still trust, even after the wide proliferation (and increasing sophistication) of Photoshop. Theater is somewhat of its opposite, allowing an audience to believe in something temporarily, though the delusion is only participated in partly. We are not surprised when we go backstage to see that the set…Read More
Tracing Networks of Political Corruption in Sheida Soleimani’s Slick, Hyper-Stylized Tableaux “Hotbed” zeroes in on the places where these power relations and abuses between the US and Iran make themselves most visible. by Cassie Packard December 18, 2020 Installation view of Sheida Soleimani: Hotbed, Denny Dimin, 2020 (all images courtesy Denny Dimin) The compressed, hyper-stylized images in Sheida Soleimani’s first New York City solo show bring a critical eye to the tense relationship between the US and Iran, as well as the corruption that…Read More
In the studio with Sheida Soleimani by OSMAN CAN YEREBAKAN Photography by Cole Barash The Iranian-American artist invites us into her converted, 19th century barn in Rhode Island, where politically charged installations co-exist with her hobby of rehabilitating injured wildlife Sheida Soleimani always imagined she’d become a vet. Growing up with a doctor father and a nurse mother, who were forced to flee the post-revolution regime in Iran, Soleimani considered the family practice indisputable. However, when she tried her…Read More
5 Art Gallery Shows to See Right Now Thornton Dial’s “Flying Tiger,” Thomas Eggerer’s protest painting, Harriet Korman’s brilliant canvases, Sheida Soleimani’s portraits of Iranian-U.S. relations, and Etel Adnan’s tapestries. Dec. 9, 2020 Sheida Soleimani Through Dec. 23. Denny Dimin Gallery, 39 Lispenard Street, Manhattan. 212-226-6537, dennygallery.com. Sheida Soleimani’s “Iran Heavy” (2018), archival pigment print.Credit…Sheida Soleimani and Denny Dimin Gallery You would be forgiven for thinking that Sheida Soleimani made the photographs in her exhibition “Hotbed” digitally. Collapsing space…Read More
CATALOGS AVAILABLE! Exhibition catalog for Sheida Soleimani Hotbed an exhibition at Denny Dimin Gallery, New York City, November 6 – December 23, 2020. Catalog essay by Jane Ursula Harris. Jane Ursula Harris is a Brooklyn-based writer who has contributed to Art in America, Bookforum, BOMB, Cultured Magazine, The Paris Review, Flash Art, The Believer, and GARAGE, among other publications. Her essays appear in catalogues including Carnegie Mellon’s forthcoming Jacolby Satterwhite: Spirits Roaming on the Earth; Participant Inc.’s NegroGothic: M. Lamar;…Read More
Sheida Soleimani: Hotbed @Denny Dimin By Loring Knoblauch / In Galleries / November 17, 2020 JTF (just the facts): A total of 11 color photographs, generally framed in color-matched artist’s frames and unmatted, and hung against white walls in the divided gallery space. All of the works are archival pigment prints, made between 2018 and 2020 (two of the works are being exhibited as 120×90 inch Phototex prints adhered directly to the wall, but are available as regular framed prints)….Read More
Visit the Tribeca Galleries on Saturday, December 5th from 11am-7pm! Denny Dimin Gallery is pleased to be hosting “Hotbed” a solo exhibition by Sheida Soleimani. Visit the exhibition page: Sheida Soleimani: Hotbed. In the below video, Sheida Soleimani is joined with curator Jasmine Wahi to unpack the imagery and sources that make up the Iran-U.S. finger-pointing diptych, 1/8/2020 and PS752. Both these photographs are part of Soleimani’s newest series, Levers of Power. Together they illustrates how technologies of power…Read More
Sheida Soleimani: Hotbed Speaking truth to the crises that define relations between Iran and the United States, Soleimani superimposes source imagery onto sculptural backdrops to reflect and critique hot-button issues such as demands for reparations, sanctions on trade and resources, and the “crude” history of the petroleum industry. The self-titled Hotbed (2020), one of the exhibition’s most evocative works, comments on Iran’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic by freezing the arm of the country’s deputy health minister in the physically…Read More
Join us over Zoom for a celebratory opening conversation of the exhibition, Sheida Soleimani: Hotbed. The online event will include a walkthrough, discussion of the work, and Q & A. Watch the event Sheida Soleimani received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and her BFA from the University of Cincinnati, College of Art. Soleimani’s most recent solo exhibitions were at Harlan Levey Projects in Brussels, Andrew Rafacz Gallery in Chicago and the evolving exhibition Medium of Exchange that examined…Read More
By Brian Boucher Published March 6th 2020, updated March 10th 2020 How far will art fairs go to make themselves educational affairs on par with museum exhibitions? What can these events, where dealers convene to sell their wares to well-heeled collectors, do to set themselves apart from their competitors? As fairs proliferate, to about 300 worldwide, their organizers introduce new features, like panel discussions and concerts, meant to add intellectual heft and to cultivate and entertain broader audiences. (Confession: I myself…Read More
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