Opening Celebration—Amir H. Fallah: The Fallacy of Borders

The Fowler welcomes you to the opening celebration of Amir H. Fallah: The Fallacy of Borders (January 29–May 14, 2023). Artist Amir H. Fallah and exhibition curator Amy Landau will be joined by UCLA Design Media Arts professor emeritus and award-winning book designer Willem Henri Lucas and president of Judson Studios David Judson for a conversation about Fallah’s artistic practices, collaborations, and the significance of his work in Los Angeles, home to the largest community of Iranians outside Iran. The moderated discussion will start at 6 pm and will be followed by an evening reception with light refreshments and music.

6–7 pm: Moderated discussion | Lenart Auditorium

7–9 pm: Reception | Courtyard

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. His work has been shown extensively in solo and group exhibitions across the United States and abroad. In 2009, he was chosen to participate in the 9th Sharjah Biennial; in 2015, he received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant. In 2019, Fallah was awarded the Northern Trust Purchase Prize at EXPO Chicago for his painting Calling on The Past. Fallah was recognized with the COLA Individual Artist Fellowship and the Artadia grant in 2020. His work forms part of the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; the de Young Museum, San Francisco; the Jorge M. Pérez Collection, Miami; Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece; and Xiao Museum of Contemporary Art, Rizhao, China.

Amy Landau is director of education and interpretation at the Fowler Museum at UCLA. Previously, she has served as director of curatorial affairs and curator of Islamic and South & Southeast Asian art at the Walters Art Museum (2009-2018). In 2017, she was a fellow at the Center for Curatorial Leadership. Landau lectures and publishes on the arts of early modern Iran; her curatorial work has been generously funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. She received her PhD from the Department of Islamic Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford.

David Judson is the fifth-generation Judson family member to own and operate the Judson Studios. David and his team bring a 21st-century sensibility and technological savvy to the ancient craft of stained glass as they work with spaces ranging from boutique hotels to historic buildings. Following in the footsteps of 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 the meticulous process of working with stained glass.

Willem Henri Lucas is a UCLA Design Media Arts professor emeritus and award-winning book designer. He began his career by working on a contemporary art magazine in the Netherlands. He then served as a professor and chair of graphic design department at the Utrecht School of the Arts. In 1998, Lucas designed the holiday postage stamp for the Dutch Post and telecom company. He has been teaching typography and graphic design classes at UCLA since 2007. In the classroom and in the projects he undertakes, Lucas is committed to “bringing design back ‘to the street,’ and ‘humanity’ back into design.”

The Fallacy of Borders is the first solo, Los Angeles-museum presentation of artist Amir H. Fallah (b. 1979, Tehran, Iran; lives and works in Los Angeles). More than 25 works on view span painting, sculpture, stained glass, and textiles, all characterized by vivid and saturated colors, dense patterns, and layered imagery. Fallah draws on a wide range of traditions, from fashion design to venerated art histories, and finds inspiration in intersections of cultures from around the globe in his adoptive city of Los Angeles. Working fluidly across genres and media, he contends with themes of inheritance and appropriation, personhood and objecthood, diaspora and homeland, challenging us to question and transcend boundaries and borders that separate people, cultures, geographies, and art practices. Exhibition is on view January 29–May 14, 2023.

Major support is provided by the Fowler Contemporary Council Fund, Clough/Hillenburg Fund, and Fay Bettye Green Fund. Additional generous support is provided by the Younes & Soraya Nazarian Family Foundation, Peyton Family Foundation, George R. and Nancy Ellis Endowment Fund, Farhang Foundation, Azita and George Fatheree, Tad Freese and Brook Hartzell, Pamela and David Hornik, Cheryl and Bruce Kiddoo, Shulamit Nazarian Gallery, Orna Delrahim, Aryan Papoli and Abas Goodarzi, First Financial Capital Inc and Katy Saei, Connie McCreight, Jay Geller and Lowell Gallagher, and Avant Arte.

Image: Amir H. Fallah (b. 1979, Tehran, Iran), Protector 1, 2022; acrylic on canvas; Ginsberg Family Collection; image courtesy of the artist and Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles