Farideh Lashai’s Multifaceted Artistry: A Glimpse into Her Crystal and Glass Design Works

Los Angeles-based Iranian contemporary art platform ADVOCARTSY has unveiled a captivating solo exhibition featuring the late Farideh Lashai’s lesser-known yet intriguing crystal and glass design works. This extraordinary exhibition, “Studies for Crystal and Glass Design and Other Works,” provides a unique insight into the multidisciplinary career of one of Iran’s most distinguished female artists.

Farideh Lashai’s artistic journey was prolific, spanning five decades from the 1960s until her untimely passing in 2013. While she is primarily celebrated as a painter, this exhibition sheds light on her foundational work as a glass designer—a facet of her career that significantly influenced her later creations.
At the heart of this exhibition lies a limited edition portfolio of twenty-eight silkscreens. These silkscreens are posthumous reproductions of Lashai’s original studies and crystal and glass design sketches. Created on kalk paper during her tenure at Riedel Studios and Rosenthal Studios in the 1960s, these pieces offer a glimpse into her early creative process.
Lashai’s journey as a glass designer laid the groundwork for her later work, evident in the two paintings and video projections from her 2010 series, “Rabbit in Wonderland.” These paintings showcase the evolution of her artistic expression, where seemingly silent gestural abstract paintings begin to pulsate with political, whimsical, and poetic narratives. It’s a transformation that brings to the forefront her role not only as an abstract painter but also as a forward-thinking intellectual, writer, and thinker.

This presentation serves as a testament to Farideh Lashai’s refusal to be confined by artistic boundaries. Throughout her illustrious career, she fearlessly experimented with various mediums, from painting and sculpture to writing, installation, and even a fusion of animation and painting. What ties her diverse body of work together is a prevailing lyricism that speaks to viewers across different art forms.

Born in Rasht, Iran, Lashai embarked on a transformative journey to Europe at eighteen. She pursued German studies at Goethe University Frankfurt and later honed her skills in glass and crystal design at the Academy of Applied Arts, Vienna. In 1966, she joined Riedel Studio in Austria, and two years later, she made her debut as a designer alongside Claus Riedel in Milan. Concurrently, she continued her design work at Rosenthal Studios in Bavaria.
Notably, this exhibition also features twelve Rosenthal ceramic vases designed by Lashai during the same period. These vases from a private collection serve as tangible traces of that transformative period in her life. They are foundational to understanding Lashai’s artistic journey, offering a glimpse into the delicate experimentation with materials that would later characterize her work.
The interplay of materials continues in this exhibition, where the ephemeral, semi-transparent quality of video projections contrasts with the opacity of the painting, creating a unique visual dialogue.
For those eager to explore the legacy of Farideh Lashai and experience her art firsthand, ADVOCARTSY extends an invitation to the public opening of “Farideh Lashai” at its West Hollywood gallery on Thursday, September 14th, 2023, from 6-9 pm. No appointment will be necessary.

www.advocartsy.com