Each colour is a gift for you (Agapornis), 2015. Courtesy the artist and Chert, Berlin
Swiss-Iranian artist Vanessa Safavi puts colorful dead parakeets, lovebirds, and other birds on white pedestals in her Each color is a gift for you exhibit at the Swiss Art Awards for this week’s Art Basel in Switzerland. The taxidermy birds are radical symbols of the perception of exoticism as seen through a Western lens.Safavi, who shares her time between Switzerland and Berlin, makes art installations out of mundane objects full of symbolism and historical reference. Her works take on complex themes of alienation and identity. She approaches her work with heavy doses of ethnological research.
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In Basel, alongside of the birds are Safavi’s silicones series Archipels, an interpretation of satellite views of Earth. She tells The Creators Project, “the blue stains remain islands, or an unknown geographical spot of the map, in connection to the birds which also connect us to foreign environments.” The exhibition challenges our relation to nature, knowledge, and cartography.
Courtesy the artist and Chert, Berlin
Courtesy the artist and Chert, Berlin
Courtesy the artist and Chert, Berlin
Each colour is a gift for you (Psittacula kramer), 2015. Courtesy the artist and Chert, Berlin
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