Sitara Abuzar Ghaznawi
Liste Year
Year of Birth
Country of Birth
Presented by
2022
LC Queisser
Sitara Abuzar Ghaznawi (b. 1995) is a 27-year-old visual artist based in Zurich and a graduate of BA in Art & Media at Zurich University of the Arts. Mainly working with the two-dimensional and sculptural collages, spatial interventions have become her primary medium, entailed with socio-political questions and commentary on capitalistic structures, institutions, and the tension between art and the public sphere. The artist presents the kindred grasp of the mixed medium and alternation, introducing value to low and mass-produced materials. Throughout Ghaznawi’s practice, she has created vitrines, showcases, bookshelves, and similar presentation devices, serving as memorials. She uses glass surfaces and rigid structures as a reflection platform, flirting with the quasi-democratic publicness and the power of framing and display in shaping narratives and hidden histories. Ghaznawi has been working closely with archive materials and has previously displayed Emmy Henning’s works at the Swiss Institute. The inherent melancholy of institutions, public design, and architecture in education-producing settings or public service establishments gives her the working material for aesthetical re-rendering. In looking back on the historic and hereditary matter, the artist has embraced the visual language of eastern folklore, manifested in her color palette and conscious use of flower motifs, alongside the one of pop culture, challenging the established taste in the contemporary art scene, fusing the low-high culture. The institutions' cultural and class inequalities and ideological dysfunctions are the constructs that Ghaznawi critically re-considers, both through content and visually. In her practice, she commissions experimental texts or poetic essays to friends or other artists as an abstract gesture and a reminder of all the stories and texts unwritten because of work, reproduction, and trauma.
"Ghaznawi’s deployment of mass-produced petro-textiles and cheap haberdashery is as precise as it is evocative. She makes no attempt to upcycle or otherwise smooth over her materials’ humble origins” - Rahel Aima (2021, October). Bulgur materialism: Sitara Abuzar Ghaznawi Mousse Magazine, 77.
Installation view, Sitara Abuzar Ghaznawi & Marina Xenofontos, Don't Build Picturesquely, 2022
Hot Wheels Athens in collaboration with LC Queisser, Athens
Sitara Abuzar Ghaznawi, 'Hymn and Silence' at LC Queisser, Tbilisi
Installation view, Sitara Abuzar Ghaznawi, 'Hymn and Silence', 2021, LC Queisser, Tbilisi
The non-functional aluminum chairs, turned into displays, preserve and make the entirety of her working material tangible to the viewer during exhibition-making. The structure of the chairs is designed to be mechanically attachable to each other, commenting on the communal architecture and bureaucracy. Rigid and solid objects in her installations carry the ideological burden and commonly are contrasted with the more delicate and perishable textures & materials. Her approach often emphasizes the dilemma of object value and its worthiness, craftsmanship, and labor when presented in a gallery space by introducing daily litter in her works. For example, Ghaznawi preserves cigarette ends and plastic roses inside precisely-constructed showcases, raising the question of value, content, and display.
Ghaznawi has recently started making paintings on scrap fabric, which habitually remain unstretched, unprimed, and ideally raw to contradict and dismantle the Western Aesthetical gesture of viewing a painting and conceptualizing it as a medium in a predetermined hierarchical way.
Flower Garden, 2021
The title of the painting, Flower Garden, is a literal suggestion of what’s on it. Very rushed and deliberately primitivistic-looking imagery rests on the irregular cut surface. The missing square is not cut out from the painting; rather, the picture is done on a leftover fabric, as Ghaznawi uses her gathered materials from everyday life and other works till the last bit.
'Emmy Hennings / Sitara Abuzar Ghaznawi' brings together the first translations in English of poems and writing by Emmy Hennings (b. 1885, d. 1948) with the work of Zurich-based artist Sitara Abuzar Ghaznawi (b. 1995). Hennings, co-founder of Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich (with Hugo Ball) was a performer, artist and writer whose work has received little visibility until relatively recently. Ghaznawi creates frames and encounters for Hennings's writing through collages, sculptures and new writing by members of her artistic community.
With texts and contributions by: Sitara Abuzar Ghaznawi, Timur Akhmetov, Simon Castets, Olamiju Fajemisin, Emmy Hennings, Salome Hohl, Shamiran Istifan, Semuel Lala, Nils Amadeus Lange, Laura McLean-Ferris, Furquat Palvan-Zade, Sophia Rohwetter, Ser Serpas, Ian Woolridge, Michael Zimmermann. Graphic design: Dan Solbach
Sitara Abuzar Ghaznawi’s recent solo and duo exhibitions include Don't Build Picturesquely (with Marina Xenofontos), 2022, Hot Wheels Athens, in collaboration with LC Queisser, Athens; Hymn and Silence, 2021, LC Queisser, Tbilisi; LOVE/ Terms and Conditions, 2021, Galerie Maria Bernheim, Zurich; Emmy Hennings / Sitara Abuzar Ghaznawi, 2020, Swiss Institute New York, New York; Bookshelf 3, 2020, School, Vienna; Emmy Hennings / Sitara Abuzar Ghaznawi, 2020 Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich; Underworld Classic, 2019, Luma Westbau & schwarzescafé, Zurich; Lefto ...
oberih - a collaborative publication of LC Queisser and understructures, and a fundraising project in frames of Liste Art Fair to support initiatives and collectives from Ukraine.
* oberih (in Ukrainian.: an item that protects, ‘takes care’, English
equivalent: amulet, talisman) — a magical object, man-made/natural
element, endowed with special powers to protect from disease and bad
luck; or to bring fortune, good health and special protection to its owner.
At times, when the life of a person is under a threat, oberih happens to be
a very personal, intimate item. Not only does it carry the power to protect,
but also it translates a special memory and sincere intention of those,
who share it with us. We accept oberihs from our parents, from the loved
ones, from friends or from people we hardly know, but always from
those, who in their kind hearts wish to protect us.
In this very open-hearted exchange, in a magical, symbolic language
of amulets, mystical stones, bits, texts, and motifs, we communicate our
most sincere message to others: to take care, to keep safe, and to come
back home alive.
—
The book is a collection of personal artifacts and stories collected from Ukrainians, who currently live in a state of emergency in difficult, sometimes, life-threatening circumstances. it traces intimate and trustful links between people, memories, and events, mediated through times and distances by a magical symbolic object, one we call oberih. compiled by understructures collective, the publication also aims to raise funds and provide a platform and financial support for those currently in need in Ukraine.
Liste Year
Year of Birth
Country of Birth
Presented by
2020
1995
Switzerland
Maria Bernheim
Born 1995, Lives and works in Zurich.
The assemblages of Sitara Abuzar Ghaznawi transgress forms and space, revealing a questioning of institutional structures and accepted ideas of craft and taste. In her sculptural transformations her processes insist on maintaining the visibility of the lowly beginnings of her materials, forming strong, shameless and rigorous poetries.
Exhibition view, Emmy Hennings / Sitara Abuzar Ghaznawi, Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich, photo: Cabaret Voltaire, Gunnar Meier
Sitara Abuzar Ghaznawi, Installation view, Underworld Classic, schwarzescafé, Luma Westbau , Zurich, 2019, Photo: Nelly Rodrigue
Sitara Abuzar Ghaznawi, BOOKSHELF 2 (EMPTY, FRAGILE), Installation view of Plattform20, Kunsthalle Fribourg, photo: Guillaume Python
