Shahryar Nashat

Shahryar Nashat's new object is based on a 3D scan of an elbow manipulating a sculpture with an invisible hand. The box-shaped sculpture that is seen in this work was presented in the artist's exhibition titled “They Come To Touch” at 8762 Holloway Drive in Los Angeles, a modernist storefront constructed by Rudolph Schindler. “They Come To Touch” is equally an apt description of Nashat's new work. The mechanical scanning of the camera captures the sculpture and this specific body part in a non-descript digital space, where a technical glitch occurs in the space between subject and object. The scanning device cannot differentiate between limb and object. Thus, the photo-representation is not real, but a technological failure of translation of form. As with most of Nashat's works, the space could be anywhere, the limb could be anyone's. The series of works consist of 17 unique pieces, as each print represents a different vanishing point and perspective. The colors resemble visceral unnatural tones, being in line with the artist's common color choices like puce, yellow and lilac. The work was primed and sealed with acrylic before the industrial UV print came on top, almost like a haptic relief. It can be considered a wall sculpture, not only because Nashat is mostly working with installations but more because the solid piece of aluminum is 2 cm thick and weighs around 10 kg.

The photograph is computer generated. It is a conversion of the corporeality and the incorporeality of the two objects as visual, mental and physical representations. In this playful approach Nashat's work tries to dialectically alienate but also reconcile technology, objecthood, and our bodily capabilities in new digital formats of photography. The work continues Nashat's exploration of bodies and his inquiry into the experience of digital and visual but also physical and intellectual spaces. It is a transformation of interior and exterior, technology and the body, nature and culture. The work can be read as an allegory of human desire to comprehend art objects and bodies in space in relation to their representation. As in his recent exhibitions Nashat explores how bodies and artworks can be seen, felt and perceived. Thereby, he often uses technological innovations serving as protheses extending the abilities and functions of the human form. Pieces of bodies, objects and life experiences show the contemporary fragmentation of consciousness and the body through technology and mediatization. The corporeality depicted seems to communicate to the viewer a constant longing for intimacy. We consider this corporeality to be organic and fragile objects that cannot be fully grasped. DK