Image: Haleh Redjaian. Out of Line, 2021, dimensions variable, nails, threads, steel frame, (detail). © April Morais, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Haleh Redjaian, born in Frankfurt am Main in 1971, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. The basis of her drawings, textile works, and installations consists primarily of repetitive grids, patterns and networks, which she creatively reshapes and reworks. At the center of her work is always the line, whether drawn on paper, found in the form of a taut thread expanding into the exhibition space, or even just imagined. But there are also moments in which the seemingly rigid order and linearity of her work are broken – slight deviations, deliberate distortions. These visual disturbances in Redjaian’s works always remain subtle and are therefore all the more effective.

Redjaian frequently crafts her textile works as tapestries, which are made according to her own designs in southern Iran. The handmade material with its woven pattern creates irregularities that disrupt the strict geometrization of the underlying design. Redjaian further emphasizes this by applying structures made of thread to the tapestries, or by printing on them. The artist also incorporates this process of reshaping prefabricated structures into her drawings, often producing them on preprinted paper, such as calendar pages and grid paper.

In her installations, Redjaian is always in dialogue with the spaces in which they are created, responding to the architecture, lighting conditions and atmosphere. The three-dimensional thread work on display at Kunsthaus Dahlem was also created in relation to the surrounding works by Sofie Dawo and the artists of the ZERO group. Conceptual connections exist already, as the work with grids and seriality, but also the subtle deviations from ordered systems, are characteristic of the art of the 1960s. With her installation developed on site, Redjaian engages in a lively dialogue with the works of artists of previous generations and transports their questions about art into the present.

As part of the exhibition: FROM FIBER TO FORM – Sofie Dawo’s Textile Art Between ZERO and Concrete Art

Opening: Thursday, 22.02.2024 | 19:00 – Find out more HERE