Italian-Persian artist Bizhan Bassiri brings his "Creation" to Milan.

Bizhan Bassiri. Creation, curated by Bruno Corà, is the first major solo exhibition of Italian-Persian artist Bizhan Bassiri(Tehran, 1954) that BUILDING Gallery is hosting in its spaces from Jan. 30 to March 22, 2025. The exhibition, developed on three exhibition floors of the gallery, transports the visitor to an ancestral and timeless dimension, in which the works, which seem to emerge from a magmatic universe, take shape from time to time in sculptures and paintings marked by specific materials and colors.

Sculptures and paintings emerge from a magmatic imaginary, articulating themselves in an evocative chromatic path: red dominates the ground floor, blue characterizes the second floor, while black envelops the top level, where, as the artist suggests, “Observing in the dark, the dark I see.”

Bizhan Bassiri’s career began in Rome, where he trained between 1976 and 1980 at the Academy of Fine Arts under Toti Scialoja. In 1981 he exhibited for the first time in the Italian capital, soon emerging among the artists who developed their own vision of art in the 1980s. His concept of "magmatic thought," fusing pictorial-plastic experiences of Western and Eastern art, became the beating heart of his research, with a visual language combining ancestral roots and contemporary experimentation.

Over the years, Bassiri has been confronted with leading figures on the international art scene, from Jannis Kounellis to Alighiero Boetti, from Joseph Kosuth to Günther Uecker, maturing a personal code of expression. With this Milan exhibition, he emphasizes his ability to construct a narrative out of time, in which the dimension of metamorphosis is central. Matter, which he calls a permanent “storm,” is transformed into works that evoke myth and cosmology, drawing on archaic and universal imagery.

Prominent among the works on display are the Solar Mirrors (2024), steel plates crossed by lightning abrasions that subvert the function of the mirror, no longer a reflection of reality but an autonomous source of light. The Storm Particles (2024), textural paintings obtained by macerating newsprint in vats of natural pigments, evoke geological stratifications, while the Hermes (2000-2024), inspired by the classical herm, combine an inverted truncated-pyramidal base with shapeless lava stone heads.

The exhibition, conceived in relation to the architecture of BUILDING Gallery, is among the artist’s most significant projects in recent years, marking his exhibition debut in Milan. His works, featured in prestigious museum collections, represented Iran at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017, confirming the international scope of his research.

For all information, you can visit the official website of BUILDING Gallery.

Pictured: Bizhan Bassiri, Serpe (2024), mirror-pulled bronze, plaster and marble dust. Ph. credit: Benedetta Balloni

Italian-Persian artist Bizhan Bassiri brings his "Creation" to Milan.

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