NAFIR: Flooring Gods

Urban Spree Galerie presents “Flooring Gods”, the first solo show in Germany of the Iranian artist Nafir. 

“Flooring Gods” presents around 45 recent works of the anonymous Tehran-based stencil artist and is to date the most ambitious solo show of the artist. 

Nafir aims to reintroduce the woman in the Iranian public space. By stenciling unveiled faces of Iranian women on centuries-old carpets and pasting them in the street, he uses a traditional medium, often associated with religion and certainly with tradition, to depict bold women living in a repressive society and daring to confront the judgment of the passing crowd, the taboos of a regime whose rigorist islam forbids such practice and iconography but also aims to rejuvenate a pre-islamic past and reconnect with Persia’s old history.

The son of a carpet merchant in the old bazaar of Tehran, the choice of this woven surface to express his ideas is very much linked to his personal history and a deep love for his country and regional traditions (as Nafir puts it, “the history of Iran is not written, it is woven”), albeit used in an iconoclastic way.

Nafir’s stencils are unique pieces, not only because of the carpets used but the stencils are rarely used twice in his indoor work. The women portrayed are mainly from his circle of friends: models, photographers, artists, dancers, performers, musicians and DJs who stand up for freedom, unafraid of consequences… and represent the Iranian youth, disillusioned and hopeful.

The exhibition also introduces for the first time a series of handicraft spray cans. Nafir imagined that the spray cans he used to paint on traditional carpets could be sublimated in the hands of old artisans and craft masters of Tehran, who imprint their ancestral knowledge onto the aerosol vessel, creating a bond between generations through a unique and reverse collaboration.

In addition to the unique pieces of the show, a 9-color screen print will be released by Urban Spree Prints in a regular edition of 50 prints + 3 special editions of respectively 20, 15, and 15 variant prints. The print will be released for the Finissage of the show.

Vernissage: Thursday, July 28th from 18:00

Live Performance by Sam Eyvaz
DJ sets by Ava Irandoost, Moji, Nafir
A video performance by Roody will be play on the opening night

Nafir: Flooring Gods

28.07.2022 – 28.08.2022