The work of Abbas Akhavan ranges from site-specific ephemeral installations to drawing, video, sculpture and performance. The direction of his research has been deeply influenced by the specificity of the sites where he works: the architectures that house them, the economies that surround them, and the people that frequent them. The domestic sphere, which he proposes as a forked space between hospitality and hostility has been an ongoing area of study in his practice. More recent works have wandered onto spaces and species just outside the home: the garden, the backyard, and other domesticated landscapes.
Artwork description
This edition of Dazibao satellite features two new works by Abbas Akhavan. While the artist has carefully responded to each site individually and separately, both works seem to conjugate ambiguities relating to public or domestic spaces and to function in elliptical reflections spanning the course of many years, eras even.
At the Bonsecours Market, Lights In The City 1999, is a textual piece responding to a work of the same name by artist Alfredo Jaar wherein the cupola of the Bonsecours would light up red when triggered by a button pressed by people entering various homeless shelters throughout Montreal. Akhavan’s text situates his contemplation of Jaar’s social and public artwork within the personal and domestic space of his own apartment but repeats out of necessity the political outcry that is all the more urgent in the context of Montreal’s housing crisis today.