Anonymous Sculptures: A Typology of Technical Constructs

Azad Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Shaghayegh Kamyar’s first solo exhibition, “Anonymous Sculptures; A Typology of Technical Constructs,” on August 7, 2025. The exhibition will be on view through August 23, 2025.

The exhibition features a series of photographs and an installation by Tehran-based interdisciplinary artist Shaghayegh Kamyar (b. 1986). Her work is deeply influenced by the social and cultural environment she inhabits, focusing on contemporary challenges related to identity and collective life. Kamyar’s practice employs a wide range of mediums, including photography, installation, and research.

The photographic series, titled “Anonymous Sculptures; A Typology of Technical Constructs,” documents empty billboards in and around Tehran. The project began in 2019 , when the artist observed these massive, monument-like structures that had lost their intended function. Kamyar interpreted their emptiness as a sign of economic decline, factory closures, shifts in advertising, and rising rental costs. The billboards' emptiness coincided with the state's annual slogans, which had been emphasizing domestic production since 2017. The press was also reporting the closure of numerous factories, confirming the artist's feeling of a "broken industrial wheel that could no longer turn".

The title and concept for the exhibition are a direct homage to the work of German photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher. Kamyar's approach was inspired by the Bechers' “typology” method of documenting industrial structures. Her primary photographs were taken with a large format 4x5 camera, echoing the Bechers’ technique. However, Kamyar also includes images taken with a 135 film camera and a mobile phone, capturing snapshots of the structures. The exhibition's installation, a negative roll that includes the annual slogans and images of shuttered factories, serves as a direct explanation of the artist's personal interpretation of the billboards’ emptiness.

This collection of urban imagery is an attempt to narrate absence and silence through the passage of time. It is Kamyar's first solo exhibition after previously participating in several group exhibitions.