Shirin Sabahi

de Shirin Sabahi

This book revolves around "Matter and Mind", a sculpture by Japanese artist Noriyuki Haraguchi that was produced on-site at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art just before the museum's inauguration in 1977. Comprising a rectangular steel basin filled with used engine oil, the installation has remained in the building's atrium to this day and has become a symbol of the museum. Its central position in the building and reflective quality allude to the water pools of traditional Iranian architecture, while its material recalls crude oil, which essentially funded the new museum and its collection. The book appears as an epilogue to Shirin Sabahi's exhibition "Borrowed Scenery" at the Edith-Russ-Haus für Medienkunst, Oldenburg, Germany.