TEHRAN – Iranian sculptor Parviz Tanavoli’s iconic Heech series will be reviewed in an online session on June 16 at the Museum for Islamic Art in Berlin.

As an introduction, Stefan Weber, director of the Museum for Islamic Art, will speak about one work from the Heech series, which has been on view at the museum since July 26, 2020, the organizers said.

In addition, Tandis Tanavoli, a film producer and the daughter of the artist, and Gisela Fock, who did her doctorate on Parviz Tanavoli and has been studying Iranian modernism for 25 years, will attend the session, which will be held in the English language from 6:30 to 7:30 pm. 

It will be open to the general public on Webex Webinars through the link https://spk-berlin.webex.com/spk-berlin/onstage/g.php?MTID=e7c556401527d2dd09f9b49996e01bd9e.

The Museum of Islamic Art is located in the Pergamon Museum and is part of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.

“Parviz Tanavoli is one of Iran’s most outstanding living artists, whose work now spans over six decades,” the museum said in a statement for the session. 

“Venturing the popular aesthetics in his native country, he bridged European style modernism, U.S. Pop art, and many more inspirations into a uniquely modern as well as recognizably Iranian art form.

“Heech, regarded by some as his most outstanding series, iconizes an elegantly curved nastaliq script in three dimensions. 

“Since 1964, the Farsi word that translates as ‘nil’ forms one of Tanavoli’s central preoccupations, and he has used it in artwork from painting to sculpture, and as an almost hidden inclusion within other works or on a grand scale as stand-alone script statues.”

Tanavoli is a founding member of the Saqqakhaneh School, the first modern art movement in Iran. His practice incorporates modernist aesthetics with traditional motifs including handicrafts and Persian literature.

Tanavoli has showcased his artworks at major art centers across the world, including the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Tate Modern in London, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, British Museum in London, Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Venice Biennale.

Numerous museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, British Museum, Tate Modern and the Museum of Modern Art in Vienna, are displaying his work in their collections.

Photo: A sculpture from Parviz Tanavoli’s Heech series on display at the Museum for Islamic Art in Berlin.

MMS/YAW