Shahpour Pouyan's 'Winter in Paradise' at Frist Art Museum

The Frist Art Museum in Nashville presents 'Shahpour Pouyan: Winter in Paradise,' the artist's largest solo museum exhibition, on view from May 30 to August 25, 2024. The multimedia show features architectural drawings, ceramic sculptures, and a new virtual reality experience. Pouyan, born in Iran in 1979 and based between Tehran and London, critiques political power and explores the architecture of power, fragmentation, and destruction. The exhibition includes 'Monday Recollections of the Muqarnas Dome,' 39 drawings of the Imam al-Dawr monument destroyed by ISIS in 2014, created from memory. Ceramic sculptures reincarnate the monument, while 'We Owe This Considerable Land to the Horizon Line' presents dystopian clay buildings. The VR installation, 'Winter in Paradise,' immerses viewers in an 11th-century Persian mosque with virtual snow, created in collaboration with Siavash Naghshbandi and Saba Alizadeh. The Frist received the 2022 Ellsworth Kelly Award from the Foundation for Contemporary Art, funding the exhibition.