Shirana Shahbazi : then again

“Photography is always suspended between authenticity, construction and selection … a balancing act that is, to me, its quintessential justification as an artistic medium” Shirana Shahbazi Shirana Shahbazi adopts different approaches to photography in her work and explores genres as varied as the vanitas still-life, portraiture, landscape and colour abstraction. Shahbazi is just as mobile in her choice of media, for example commissioning carpet makers in her native Iran and billboard painters to copy her images. Often employing the slick look of commercial photography, Shahbazi’s images are bright and accessible, yet at heart dispassionate and sceptical. Shirana Shahbazi was born in Tehran in 1974, moved to Germany in 1985 and today lives in Zurich. Shahbazi studied photography and design at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Dortmund and at Zurich University of the Arts. Her work has been exhibited at venues including the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva, Barbican Art Gallery in London and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.