Once at Present: Contemporary Art of the Bay Area Iranian Diaspora (2019)
Shiva Ahmadi
Pressure Cooker #1, 2016
Intaglio hand-etching on aluminum pressure cooker
Courtesy of the artist and Haines Gallery, San Francisco, CA
These sculptures have been meticulously decorated, every inch of their rounded surfaces hand-inscribed with delicate intaglio etchings. The works are created from Afghan pressure cookers, sourced from markets in Iran — a reference to real-world tools of violence, and more generally to the domesticity of terror. As with the rest of Ahmadi’s works, the potency of these sculptures lie in the tension between ornamentation and destruction.
Once at Present: Contemporary Art of the Bay Area Iranian Diaspora
March 29 - April 20, 2019
Minnesota Street Project
San Francisco, CA
Photo credit: Scott Chernis