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| Amir H. Fallah, My Heart Beating, My Soul Breathing, 2020. Collection of Tad Freeze and Brook Hartzell |
The Fowler Museum's "Amir H. Fallah: The Fallacy of Borders" is the first L.A. survey of the Tehran-born artist, publisher (Beautiful/Decay magazine) and UCLA alum. Fallah is a collector of images, high art, low art, and textile art, incorporating them into digital collages that are executed as paintings, polychrome sculptures, or stained glass. His work treats the strangeness of the immigrant experience and the grotesquerie of beauty.
Fallah's stained glass pieces were created in collaboration with L.A.'s Judson Studios. The best-known example is an outdoor stained glass commission for the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health.
"Amir H. Fallah: The Fallacy of Borders" runs through May 14, 2023. Amy Landau curated for the Fowler.
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| Amir H. Fallah, No Gods No Masters, 2020 |
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| Amir H. Fallah, Body and Soul, 2022 |
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| Beautiful/Decay magazine |
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| Amir H. Fallah, Silent Traveler, 2021-2022. Stained glass with LED panel. |
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| Amir H. Fallah, Portals, 2021. Commission for Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health |
Comments
No, it's a _6-foot diameter!!!!_ acrylic and collage on canvas.
I was immediately transported on seeing your first photo in this post, of Amir H. Fallah's beautiful "My Heart Beating, My Soul Breathing", of 2020. It made me recall seeing a stunning gilded and enameled copper plate (~14" dia.) of 1881 at the Musée des Arts décoratifs, Paris. That piece was by the enameler André Fernand Thesmar (d. 1912).
Luckily, I took a picture of the French piece and the associated gallery card, and have just checked to find the plate (inv. 15435) is _not_ listed on the Louvre's web page. Some museums are useless.
Any road, the Fallah painting, by the looks of the photo, could, to my mind, have been an enamel on metal, or on glass. And the humongous, mega-tondo size gives the work a whole new meaning to me.
This is why notations of media and size are fundamental to true art appreciation.