Author Description

“As soon as I see a male nude sculpture made between 1500 and 1700, I can't help but chop its top off at thigh, calf, or foot-height.” Downscaled and Overthrown is the first monograph on the work of the Swiss artist Shahryar Nashat (*1975). Whether he truncates Renaissance bronze sculptures through photography, or redesigns a section of the Louvre to accommodate the baroque frescoes of Rubens while filming a well-trained athlete performing a one-armed handstand while looking at the paintings, Nashat's works and exhibitions involve his interest in art collections, art libraries, reproduction of works of art, as well as questions relating to appropriation and artistic reuse, display issues, and apparatus. Lighting, plinths, pedestals, and the mode of projecting and positioning all play pivotal roles in Nashat's video installations, sculpture, etchings, and photographs. Wherever he draws his source or reference material from, he consistently makes a certain artificiality or constructedness obvious in order to generate the possibility of critical reflection about the medium itself. The monograph appears on the occasion of Shahryar Nashat's first solo exhibition in Germany at the Kunstverein Nürnberg – Albrecht Dürer Gesellschaft. Co-published with Kunstverein Nürnberg – Albrecht Dürer Gesellschaft and Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen