Ali Banisadr: Critic John Vincler Excavates the Work of the Artist Palaces of Memory . (This link opens in a new tab).
By John Vincler
“I'm very much interested in our collective memory,” the painter Ali Banisadr explains to me as we stand before a series of paintings that were about to be packed away for his first solo show at the Shanghai outpost of Perrotin gallery late last year. I had been voicing my skepticism about the art critic cliché of describing his work, along with that of younger painters like Maja Ruznic and Nengi Omuku, as existing between figuration and abstraction. The longer you look at the Brooklyn-based artist’s paintings, the more concrete detail accrues, with those details quickly compiling into stories. They aren’t stuck in between; they act like portals collapsing past, present, and future.
Banisadr and I met again more recently to chat about his first museum survey show, which is about to open at the Katonah Museum of Art, in Westchester County, New York. (It’s an hour-and-a-half ride from Grand Central Station, but that won’t stop New Yorkers from characterizing their visit to the lower Hudson Valley with the phrase “going upstate.”) Time collapses here also, with nearly 20 years of work—including paintings, works on paper, prints and (debuting for the first time) five sculptures in bronze.
The show of some nearly 50 works will allow a view of the entirety of the scope and accomplishment of his art, including major works like These Fragments I have Shored Against My Ruins, 2023. Massive at approximately 7-by-15 feet, it’s one of his best paintings to date, the centerpiece of his knockout 2023 Victoria Miro solo show in London.
