IN FlGHT
APRIL09 - MAY 28, 2022HONOR FRASER GALLERY, LOS ANGELES
In Flight extends Mazandi's hand into intangible dimensions, advancing the artist's decades-long interrogation of ecological entanglement, animality, and emerging human technologies.
Honor Fraser is pleased to present IN FLIGHT, a solo exhibition of ceramic sculpture and "Born-Porcelain" video by Yassi Mazandi. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, April 9th from 2 – 5pm. A conversation between Yassi Mazandi and Jamison Edgar will be hosted by NFTuesdayLA on April 12, 7pm at El Cid in SilverLake.
Using a suite of 3D modeling software and imaging technologies, Mazandi has reanimated the fragments of damaged porcelain into an immersive installation of large-scale moving murals. Articulated through screen and projection, Mazandi's pulsating animations conjure sacred geometries and expose the underlying rhythms of human touch, celestial trauma, and critical care. Throughout the gallery, animal-like apparitions blend into dense assemblages, shape-shifting contours flutter in and out of focus, and cavernous soundscapes amplify subaural frequencies. Porcelain in this remediated state becomes malleable twice over — drawing us into close intimacy with more-than-human forces.
After one of Mazandi's wheel-thrown ceremonial Flower-Vertebra shattered in the kiln, she recognized something familiar in the hardened debris — a skeleton-like bird had emerged from the intricate ribs of her once whole sculpture. The resulting Flower-Bird sculpture became the genesis of her corresponding NFTs. To create these video works, Mazandi first meticulously documented the Flower-Bird using hundreds of medical-grade X-rays. Unimpressed with the simplified, "clean" contours of most 3D imaging techniques, Mazandi's videos leverage the high velocity of subatomic particles to better accentuate the subtle imperfection left by her hand.
Using a suite of 3D modeling software and imaging technologies, Mazandi has reanimated the fragments of damaged porcelain into an immersive installation of large-scale moving murals. Articulated through screen and projection, Mazandi's pulsating animations conjure sacred geometries and expose the underlying rhythms of human touch, celestial trauma, and critical care. Throughout the gallery, animal-like apparitions blend into dense assemblages, shape-shifting contours flutter in and out of focus, and cavernous soundscapes amplify subaural frequencies. Porcelain in this remediated state becomes malleable twice over — drawing us into close intimacy with more-than-human forces.
After one of Mazandi's wheel-thrown ceremonial Flower-Vertebra shattered in the kiln, she recognized something familiar in the hardened debris — a skeleton-like bird had emerged from the intricate ribs of her once whole sculpture. The resulting Flower-Bird sculpture became the genesis of her corresponding NFTs. To create these video works, Mazandi first meticulously documented the Flower-Bird using hundreds of medical-grade X-rays. Unimpressed with the simplified, "clean" contours of most 3D imaging techniques, Mazandi's videos leverage the high velocity of subatomic particles to better accentuate the subtle imperfection left by her hand.
Each X-ray reveals a matrix of dents, abrasions, openings, and compressions concealed beneath the surface of her porcelain figures. Layering hundreds of these two-dimensional scans into a series of blooming animations, Mazandi champions the vibrant materiality of her sculptural forms and the metaphysical mobility they engender. The videos are at once porous, seductive, mysterious, and sublime.
In Flight extends Mazandi's hand into intangible dimensions, advancing the artist's decades-long interrogation of ecological entanglement, animality, and emerging human technologies. For Mazandi, ceramics and other craft traditions routinely overlooked as "women's labor" vigorously expose the tattered edges of the natural world and the false hierarchies that impose control over it. Technology in the hands of such laborers defy the homogenizing force of productivity, and moreover forges new pathways to navigate a hostile world.
In Flight extends Mazandi's hand into intangible dimensions, advancing the artist's decades-long interrogation of ecological entanglement, animality, and emerging human technologies. For Mazandi, ceramics and other craft traditions routinely overlooked as "women's labor" vigorously expose the tattered edges of the natural world and the false hierarchies that impose control over it. Technology in the hands of such laborers defy the homogenizing force of productivity, and moreover forges new pathways to navigate a hostile world.
︎︎︎MORE INF︎ HERE︎︎︎