DreAM As it falls in the Eye, in Water, in mirrors

Yasi Alipour

June 6th, 2024 — August 26th, 2024
OPENING RECEPTION — Thursday, June 6th, 2024, 6 — 8pm 

The gallery hours for this exhibition are Monday through Friday, 2 PM — 6 PM. Admission is free.
To view the Media Release click here.

Penumbra Foundation is pleased to present Dream as it Falls in the Eye, in Water, in Mirrors, a solo exhibition of new work by artist, writer, and educator Yasi Alipour. Drawing connections between mathematics, art, and language, Alipour folds and unfolds papers in recursive choreographies to create intricate geometric forms that transcend the logic and rules that generate them.

Similar to the paradoxical protocol of identifying a deliberate number used as a seed for algorithms that generate random numbers, Alipour's starting point is not accidental. Once established, the algorithm remains constant, but the conditions of folding are always changing. Infinite possibilities for symmetries emerge within this space, where geometric questions become reflected in musical and improvisational thinking.

Symmetries are the relations created between Alipour's forms, between people or the environments she folds in. The flow of everything, spoken or unspoken and invisible, is absorbed into the paper through the folds that permeate and reside inside it. No longer a surface to host an image, the drawings and paper are unified as an object.

Black like an empty sun, the toner papers render everything hypervisible through bright cracks, while the cyanotypes are full of sun, burnt deep blue by exposure and peeled away to reveal white in reversal. The empty white sheets exist only in the shadow of the present moment we share, making them legible. All leave one with an expansive, almost oceanic feeling, where in contemplation, we may find silence.

In Farsi, عکس (aks) is 'photograph' but is a word older than the medium it is given to. Used in reference as early as 10th century poetry, it pertains to anything opposing. It defines photography far beyond itself, and in this thinking across the delimits of language, عکس similarly becomes another aspect of thought. What happens when an idea, an image, or a dream is mirrored? A reverse image, a mirrored image, is formed in the shifting of a language or of a position, and instead of light or reality, a photograph can be about that process of reversal.

About the artist
Yasi Alipour is an Iranian artist/writer based in Brooklyn. Her tactile works on paper uses folding to explore mathematics as a language, with all the historical, social, political, and embodied ramifications any language holds. In her writing, research, and pedagogical approach, Alipour focuses on intergenerational conversations that happen through and within histories of erasure. Alipour currently lives in Brooklyn and wonders about paper, counting, and silence.

She is a recipient of the Dartmouth Artist-in-Residence (2024), Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant (2022), Sharpe Walentas Studio Program Award (2019/2021), Rema Hort Foundation Emerging Artist Nominee (2018/2019), and the Triple Canopy Publication Intensive (2018). Her work has been exhibited in the United States and internationally, spaces including solo exhibitions at A.I.R. Gallery (2024, NY), Schlomer Haus (2023/SF), Bavan Gallery (2022, Iran), Transmitter (2022, NY), 12 Gates Gallery (2022, PHL), the Geary Contemporary (2021), Venice Biennale (2019, IT), Museum of Contemporary Art Vijdovina (2018, SR), and PPOW (2017, NY).

Her writing has appeared at the Brooklyn Rail, Spot Magazine, Asia Contemporary Art Week, Photograph Magazine, Volume One/Triple Canopy, and Dear Dave. She has been the recipient of MHZ Foundation’s Critics of Color (Curationist) and awarded the Guest Editor of the Brooklyn Rail’s Critic’s Page (November 2021). Her recent featured interviews include Julie Mehretu, Dorothea Rockburne, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Okwui Okpokwasili, Sanford Biggers, Yto Barrada, Hans Haacke, Mark Dion, Aliza Nisenbaum, Jane Benson, and Kevin Beasley. Alipour holds an MFA from Columbia University and has been a Faculty at RISD, Parsons, New School, and SVA.
yasamanalipour.com

Dream as it Falls in the Eye, in Water, in Mirrors was organized by Yasi Alipour and Lisa di Donato. Framing by Liz Ahn, It Is Framing.
Interim Programs Director: Lisa di Donato.

Ackknowledgements
Penumbra’s Project Gallery is generously supported in part by the Joy of Giving Something.

Penumbra Foundation’s programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. 

About the Project Gallery
The 300 square-foot Project Gallery offers emerging and mid-career artists a place to present new work. The exhibitions are developed in conjunction with Penumbra's editorial or educational programming. 

Contact: Lisa di Donato | lisa@penumbrafoundation.org