May 10-September 21, 2008, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

Iranian-born American sculptor Siah Armajani uses simple forms to convey complex ideas. Armajani finds the ideals of democracy embodied in his chairs, doors, bridges, and other sculptural objects. Through his sculpture, he seeks to recover art’s connection with human experience.

Beauty

Armajani’s work adheres to the principle of beauty as explained by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“Beauty must come back to the useful arts, and the distinction between the fine and the useful arts be forgotten. If history were truly told…it would be no longer easy or possible to distinguish the one from the other….It is in vain that we look for genius to reiterate [beauty’s] miracles in the old arts; it is its instinct to find beauty and holiness in new and necessary facts, in the field and the roadside, in the shop and mill.” —“Art,” from Essays: First Series (1841)

Democracy

Siah Armajani’s sculpture embodies the ideals of democracy: liberty, equality and opportunity. It springs from his desire to create socially useful art that can be enjoyed by everyone. Through his urban pedestrian bridges, gazebos and public reading rooms, Armajani seeks to encourage human social relations. Together, his written manifestos, designs and constructed projects define and shape public art.

Born in Iran, Armajani immigrated to the United States in 1960. Here, while studying mathematics and philosophy, he absorbed the lessons of a free society. Armajani is an activist artist. His goal is to recover art’s connection with everyday experience and, thereby, give form to the ideals of democracy.

Austerity

Rigorously austere, Armajani’s sculptural forms reflect a sense of discipline, focus and effort. His sculptures are rooted in the American vernacular, the aesthetic of the one-room schoolhouse and the small-town church. With their simple forms and use of ordinary, industrial materials like milled wood and stamped aluminum, they express art’s utility, its relationship to the average person and its obligation to serve a common purpose.

Utopia

Armajani is influenced by idealistic, utopian principles expressed in the writings of America’s founding fathers and other great minds. Thomas Jefferson, primary author of the Declaration of Independence, shaped Armajani’s understanding of democracy. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American Transcendentalist philosopher whose writings championed individuality and the nobility of the human mind, further impressed the artist. Pragmatist philosopher and educational reformer John Dewey informed Armajani’s commitment to utilitarian art. The artist’s concept of an architectural structure as a space dedicated to improving human function was shaped by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. Through the writings of French philosopher Gaston Bachelard, Armajani came to understand the psychology of ordinary architectural sites. The blend of democracy, idealism and pragmatism that Armajani found in the work of these thinkers is present in his sculpture.

This exhibition was supported by the Campbell Calvin Fund and Elizabeth C. Bonner Charitable Trust for exhibitions. Midwest Airlines was the official sponsor.