CITYist

Screw, Spread, Slip, Stuck, Stab, Fall, Cross and Writhe. No, this is not a horror film description. These eight foreboding adjectives are the title for Andisheh Avini’s art exhibit now on view, through November 8, at HALF Gallery. Quaint archaic tiles, following the forms of Frank Stella’s simplistic patterns—tidy lines and measured angles—are paired with this single shocking image of blindfolded American hostages, screenprinted multiple times of varying sizes, shades and detail.

It is a striking combination, this crafted correlation between a simple abstract form, a small mediation, and dissettling violence. The tiles are made using marquetry, a process where small pieces of wood are carefully interlaid into veneer, and the tension that was present during the American hostage crisis in the 1980s, speaks ever more strongly today.

The art pulls at the teeth-gritted relationship between Iran and America, juxtaposing an imagery of the tense political relations between the two countries with an Iranian architectural craft tradition that has become debased to trinkety. It makes beauty seem trite in the face of death, though perhaps this was Avini’s offering that a return to art can alleviate some of the tensions. Maybe marquetry will mark the way to the day Avini’s American is no longer blindfolded.