Podcast appearances and mentions of Amir H Fallah

On this episode our guest is Amir H. Fallah, a contemporary artist whose vibrant, figurative works have been exhibited internationally and are in the permanent collections of many institutions, such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Birmingham Museum of Art & the Jorge M. Pérez Collection.Recorded on April 28, 2023 as a Space on X (formerly Twitter).Follow the guest:https://twitter.com/AmirHFallahFollow the host:https://twitter.com/0x_ScooterFollow Particle:https://twitter.com/Collectparticlehttps://www.particlecollection.comhttps://www.instagram.com/particlecollectionTimestamps:(00:00) Introduction(01:07) Getting Started As An Artist(05:06) Insights From Making Street Art(07:05) Evolving Into Digital Art(10:47) Appreciation For Artists(14:56) Inspiration for Artistic Imagery(18:28) Significance Of Artwork At Art Basel(25:53) Exploring Resistance Through Art(30:39) Prominent Themes From The Fallacy Of Borders(37:38) Insights From Editorial Work(42:23) Connection Between Digital & Physical Artwork(46:53) Collecting Practices & Digital Art(51:14) Hype In The NFT Space(56:28) Engaging And Connecting With Collectors(58:42) Types Of Art Collected(01:02:09) Recommended Guests For Future Collector Calls(01:04:08) Links To Amir's Artwork

In this week's edition of the podcast, we chat with artist Amir H. Fallah. First, Amir explains why he believes it is important for artists to openly discuss their experiences navigating the art world. Then, he shares some guiding principles that help him manage several aspects of his career. Also, Amir discusses what it was like to not experience success immediately in his career, identifies qualities he looks for in a gallery, explains the importance of having relationships with his collectors and reveals how he manages his emotions when his artworks come up for auction.

In 1897, when The Judson Studios was established in Los Angeles by the painter and professor William Lees Judson and his three sons, they could have never imagined the scope of the work their studio would produce in the 21stcentury. Under the direction of David Judson, Lees' great-great grandson, every project is approached with a cutting-edge sensibility and technological savvy, whether the client is a boutique hotel or a historic cathedral. Helmed by Walter Horace, the eldest of Lees' sons and a stained glass expert, Judson Studios thrived from the start, beautifying the booming metropolis of Los Angeles with works that represented the best in traditional and modern design. Today, Judson is the oldest family-run stained glass studio in America, still proudly offering an exquisite, handcrafted product made by local artisans, and continuing to serve the community that has sustained them through the decades. Located in the Highland Park section of northeast LA, the studio was founded in the Mott Alley section of downtown in the mid-1890s, but moved to its current location in 1920. The Judson Studios building was named a Historic-Cultural Landmark by the City of Los Angeles in 1969 and listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. In April of 2017 Judson Studios' Resurrection Window, the largest single composition fused glass window in the world, was dedicated. Created for the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, the groundbreaking work measures 37 feet tall by 93 feet wide. For the ambitious project, Judson Studios collaborated with world-renowned artist Narcissus Quagliata to bring then Judson designer Tim Carey's vision to life. This represented the first time a notable liturgical window was created entirely from fused glass. To accomplish the daunting task of producing this first ever fused window wall, Judson Studios expanded from their workspace in Highland Park to a new addition in South Pasadena. More than 5,000 square feet of modern factory and kiln capabilities enabled the studio, with Quagliata's assistance, to complete their most challenging commission to date.  The changes necessary for the creation of The Resurrection window have completely expanded and redefined the studio's offerings and capabilities, allowing Judson Studios to take on more work in fused glass and to collaborate with artists who don't normally work in glass. As Director of Innovation, Quagliata works with the studio to further develop capabilities in fusing while also helping to guide Judsons' growing artist development program.  Recent collaborative projects include: the Santa Clarita Fire Station 104 by Anne-Elizabeth Sobieski, commissioned by the Los Angeles County Public Arts Commission in 2020; “Embracing the World,” by Amir H. Fallah, was one of the studio's first artist collaborations in its new fusing studio in 2017; “The Muralist, ”by David Flores. Judson Studios took a design by Flores and translated it into a stained and fused glass panel. The work was displayed as part of his solo show at Sullivan Goss Gallery in Santa Barbara, California, in October of 2017; “Portals,” by James Jean, includes three panels titled “Portal Verso,” “Portal Interior,” and “Portal Recto.” Judson Studios took designs from Jean and crafted them into a stained and fused glass triptych. The work was displayed as part of his solo gallery show Azimuth at Kaikai Kiki Gallery in Tokyo, Japan, in April of 2018. Judson's 2019 collaboration with Jean titled “Gaia” is a nearly 8-foot-tall, three-dimensional crystal made entirely of fused glass and bound with lead in a custom steel frame. The piece was displayed at another of Jean's gallery exhibitions, this time at Lotte Museum in Seoul, South Korea. To commemorate the studio's expansion and growth,  Judson Studios along with Angel City Press recently released a new book, JUDSON: Innovation in Stained Glass, the first book of its kind to chronicle the studio's remarkable five-generation history. From the earliest days of the studio during the Arts and Crafts Movement, to the newly refined fused stained glass used in today's contemporary buildings, Judson Studios has been recognized internationally as among the world's finest in stained glass artistry. You can pick up your copy today by clicking here. Current president David Judson is the fifth generation Judson family member to own and operate the Studios. A supporter of the arts like his great-great grandfather William Lees, David believes in maintaining a workplace that fosters creative expression. The Studio has hosted on-site art exhibitions, and its staff includes a diverse group of artists who bring fresh eyes to this meticulous process.  

Internationally recognized artist Amir H. Fallah is known for his vibrant figurative work that draws from western painting vocabulary and turns the history of portraiture on its head. The work explores how one reconstructs identity and asks the question, how do you describe someone without showing their physical likeness? It's incredibly powerful work that is also personal. In this interview, Amir talks about his background, how he began creating his current work, and his recent public pieces that were unveiled in California.    Amir H. Fallah received his BFA in Fine Art & Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art and his MFA in painting at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions across the United States and abroad. Selected solo exhibitions include the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tucson; South Dakota Art Museum, Brookings SD; Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland OR; San Diego Art Institute; and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland KS.   In 2009, the artist was chosen to participate in the 9th Sharjah Biennial. In 2015, Fallah received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant. In 2019, Fallah's painting Calling On The Past received the Northern Trust Purchase Prize at EXPO Chicago. In 2020, Fallah was awarded the COLA Individual Artist Fellowship and the Artadia grant. In addition, the artist had a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, accompanied by a catalogue, and a year long installation at the ICA San Jose.   The artist is in the permanent collection of the Jorge M. Pérez Collection, Miami; McEvoy Foundation For The Arts, San Francisco; Nerman Museum, Kansas City; SMART Museum of Art at the University of Chicago; Davis Museum, Massachusetts; The Microsoft Collection, Washington; Plattsburgh State Art Museum, NY; Cerritos College Public Art Collection, CA; and Salsali Private Museum, Dubai, UAE.    Amir H. Fallah creates paintings, murals, and installations that explore systems of representation embedded in the history of Western art. His ornate environments combine visual vocabularies of painting and collage to deconstruct traditional notions of identity formation, while simultaneously defying expectations of the genre for portraiture by removing or obscuring the central figure. In Fallah's works, the absence of the sitter's likeness is substituted with a wider representation of their personhood—one that spans time and cultures and is articulated through a network of symbols and imagery. Fallah's paintings question not only the historical role of portraiture, but the cultural systems that are used to identify one person from another.    When autobiographical, Fallah's paintings employ a lexicon of symbols that amalgamate personal narratives with historical and contemporary parables. The paintings serve as a diary of lessons, warnings, and ideals providing coded insight into the formation of an identity, while investigating cultural values often passed between generations. When non-autobiographical, portraits of veiled subjects capitalize on ambiguity to skillfully weave fact and fiction, while questioning how to create a portrait without representing the physicality of the sitter. Although the stories that surround his subjects are deeply personal and are told through the intimate possessions they hold most dear, this work addresses generational immigrant experiences of movement, trauma, and celebration.    Fallah wryly incorporates Western art historical references into paintings formally rooted in the pattern-based visual language of art historical works from the Middle East. In doing so, his paintings possess a hybridity that reflects his own background as an Iranian-American immigrant straddling cultures. As seen in the artist's tondos—circular paintings originally used in Renaissance portraiture—Fallah reinterprets classical floral paintings that entangle references to Dutch still lives and Persian miniatures. These botanicals depict flora that don't “naturally” occur in the same ecosystem; this serves as a metaphor for immigrants that attempt to thrive in their new country, creating a new space that spans the limits of geography and disrupts the fallacy of borders.    Neither of this world or the next, Fallah's works reside in the liminal space of being ‘othered'. The paintings utilize personal history as an entry point to discuss race, representation, and the memories of cultures and countries left behind. Through this process, the artist's works employ nuanced and emotive narratives that evoke an inquiry about identity, the immigrant experience, and the history of portraiture.      SHOUT OUTS:    Matt Phillips Asad Faulwell Matt Bollinger Wendell Gladstone   GALLERIES: Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles Denny Dimin Gallery, New York The Third Line, Dubai, UAE Dio Horia, Athen/Mykonos, Greece   SPONSORS: The Empowered Artist Workshop-Bridgette Mayer Sunlight Tax Free Masterclass “The Key to More Tax Deductions"   LINKS:  http://www.amirhfallah.com/ https://www.instagram.com/amirhfallah/   I Like Your Work Links: Submit Your Work Check out our Catalogs! Exhibitions Studio Visit Artist Interviews I Like Your Work Podcast Say “hi” on Instagram  

Review by Aaron Horst for Carla issue #22, read by Lindsay Preston Zappas. Read the full issue at contemporaryartreview.la/print/issue-22.

Amir H. Fallah received his BFA in Fine Art & Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art and his MFA in painting at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions across the United States and abroad. Selected solo exhibitions include the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tucson; San Diego Art Museum, Brookings SD; Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland OR; San Diego Art Institute; and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland KS. He’s in the permanent collection of the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), Miami; McEvoy Foundation For The Arts, San Francisco; Nerman Museum, Kansas City; SMART Museum of Art at the University of Chicago; Davis Museum, Massachusetts; The Microsoft Collection, Washington; Plattsburg State Art Museum, NY; Cerritos College Public Art Collection, CA; and Salsali Private Museum, Dubai, UAE. Public art commission awards include the Los Angeles Arts Comission; the Baik Art Mural Project, Los Angeles; Pow Wow Antelope Valley, Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA; the MOCA Mural Program, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson; and the Cerritos College Public Commission, Lancaster, CA. In 2009, he was chosen to participate in the 9th Sharjah Biennial. In 2015, Amir received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant. In 2019, his painting Calling On The Past received the Northern Trust Purchase Prize at EXPO Chicago. In 2020, he was awarded the COLA Individual Artist Fellowship and the Artadia grant. He has a current show at Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles that’s up through October.

Two Dimensional Biographies by Amir H. Fallah   Los Angeles based painter Amir H. Fallah renders two-dimensional biographies of his subjects using alternative imagery to create a visual language that helps us understand who a person is. Though surrounded by intimate belongings, the faces and bodies of Fallah’s subjects are covered in highly ornate fabric, turning everything we know about portraiture upside-down.   Brainard Carey wrote, in Praxis Interviewmagazine: “Portraits of the artist’s veiled subjects employ ambiguity to skillfully weave fact and fiction like the textiles that cover them. While the stories that surround his muses are deeply personal, as told through the intimate possessions the subjects are encompassed by, they universalize generational experiences of movement, trauma, and celebration. With their Pop Art hues and investment in domestic life, Fallah’s paintings wryly incorporate contemporary American tropes into paintings more formally rooted in Islamic Art, including the organization and arabesque embellishment of Persian miniatures. In doing so, his work possesses a hybridity that reflects his own background as an Iranian- American immigrant straddling cultures.”   In 2017, Judson Studios translated two of Fallah’s paintings into stained glass. Embracing the World, the artist’s stained and fused glass self-portrait, alludes to Renaissance paintings of mother and child. An homage to his son, the piece was sold before the opening of Fallah’s solo show at Shulamit Nazarian Gallery in LA. A second Judson collaboration, entitled Offering, features Fallah’s portrait of an Iranian artist who came to America to pursue her art career the day after The Supreme Court upheld Trump’s Muslim ban.     Fallah received his BFA in Fine Art and Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2001 and his MFA in Painting at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2005. He has exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions across the United States and abroad, including solo presentations at the Schneider Museum, Ashland, Oregon (2017); the San Diego Art Institute (2017); the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland, Kansas, (2015); and The Third Line, Dubai (2017, 2013, 2009, 2007, 2005).  The recipient of the 2017 California Community Foundation Grant and 2015 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant, the artist was chosen to participate in the 9th Sharjah Biennial. This event enriches the cultural landscape of the Gulf by commissioning, producing, and presenting innovative and challenging art experiences for the United Arab Emirates community while offering an internationally recognized platform for artists from the region.   As his work attracts new collectors in painting and glass, Fallah will participate in three solo exhibitions in 2019-2020: the first in August 2019, at Dio Horia gallery in Greece; then in January 2020 at MOCA Tucson; followed by April 2020 at Shulamit Nazarian Gallery in Los Angeles. The artist is currently working with Judson Studios on a large public stained glass project for LA City to be unveiled in 2021.

Amir and I discuss how issues of identity manifest in his painting and daily life, his family's immigration into the United States from Iran, as well as running a successful studio and surviving as an artist.

Hear more from Amir on how family inspires his work and entrepreneurial spirit, how he turned Beautiful/Decay from a zine into a fully fledged business, focusing 100% on his art career, finding galleries as long-term partners, building your own buzz, and staying curious.   Patreon beyondthe.studio Intro Music by: Suahn Album Cover by: David Colson

Amir H Fallah joins us via skype from his home in LA. We talk Iran, Celebrating Explosions, Environmental Context, No Faking, Skateparks, Obsession, Beautiful Decay, Jail Visits, Deitch, Rounded Edges, Bar Codes, Subculture, Information Equality, Emotional Possessions, and Passion For Fashion.