“Bizhan Bassiri. Creation” It is the first important personal exhibition of the Italian-Persian artist (Tehran, 1954) that Building Gallery of Milan hosts in its spaces from the January 30 to March 22, 2025. The exhibition, developed on Three exhibition plans of the gallerytransports the visitor to one Ancestral and timeless dimensionin which the works, which seem to emerge from a magmatic universe, take shape from time to time in sculptures And paintings distinguished by specific materials And colors. From the red dominant on the ground floorpassing through the blue pigment employed in the works of first flooruntil you reach theblack darkness of second floorin which – the artist suggests – “observing in the dark, I see the darkness”.
Mandating in Rome in 1981, after having completed his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in that city at the School of Toti Scialoja between 1976 and 1980, Bassiri distinguished himself among the protagonists of the generation that in the eighties has developed its own in Europe Weltanschauung under the banner of a “magmatic thought”, Authentic pictorial-plastic experience Suitable to combine foundations and innovative propositions of western and eastern art, building its own original lexicon of large poetic resonance.
With a solid path behind him, the result of memorable events and important comparisons with the major Italian and international artists
(Kounellis, Boetti, West, Chiari, Anselmo, Kirkeby, Kosuth, Castellani and others), Bassiri with this pRIMA Personal exhibition in Milan highlight the linguistic maturity of his artalways kept within the registers of enunciative forms of a space-time that evades the epiphenomena of current affairs, rather oriented towards dimensions where Poker view, poetic intuition And formalization of an iconographic system Based on cosmological and mythical archetypes it takes on the character of ‘imaginary sum’.
In this visual dramaturgy, Bassiri exhibits the essential figures of his poetics: the incessant transformation of the matterconsidered by him permanent ‘storm’; The amazement of the light obtained from the work and offer as an entity related to the individual gaze; the unavoidable witness of the anthropological figure; The Serpentine risk of the unpredictive; there fate, invisible but active regulatory force And the supreme register of art that perpetuates the living tension, taking on timeless shapes. Adjuncting in an indeterminable space-time, considered eternal as existence, the work appears to be an autonomous image destined to show the enigmatic unstoppable process of magmatic thought, a source from which art arises.
There show Bizhan Bassiri. Creation it is therefore a paradigm of the artist’s fundamental morphologiescharacterized by real stations of works located in the building gallery environments, marked by the chromatic dominants referable to a ghost of distinctive colors of his poetics. Several cycles of works presented on display, including: the Solar mirrors(2024)steel surfaces crossed by lightning -fast abrasions such as flashes, which deny the traditional function of the mirror as an object that reflects the world and instead reveal their very nature as a source of light; the Stormy particles (2024)paintings similar to geological stratifications, which 
The artist gets by macerating newspaper paper in tanks full of colored water with natural pigments and the addition of hill; the Aerme (2000-2024)which, by borrowing their morphology with an ancient classical arma, are made up of an inverted trunk-pyramidal metal base on which the shaved masses of the lava stone heads are grafted. This exhibition, conceived in close relationship with the architecture of the gallery, is Among the most significant projects of recent yearsconceived by Bassiri to present an episode of his work in Milan, taking into account the significant cultural and artistic history in the city. His workspresent in museums and international private collections, The Iranian pavilion at the 57th International Exhibition of Biennale Venice in 2017 represented in 2017.
Bizhan Bassiri, Born in Tehran in 1954, he settled in Rome in 1975. He lives between Rome, Tuscany and Umbria. His artistic research starts from the use of different materials: papier -mâché surfaces and steel and bronze, lava elements, photographic elaborations. He is the author of Magmatic thought (1984) e Manifesto of magmatic thought (1984-2023).
In 2020 he established the Bassiri Foundation in Fabro, who obtained the recognition of the Italian State and who aims to manage and promote his work, also offering himself as a reference point in promoting art and culture through multidisciplinary initiatives ranging from visual art, music, theater, literature and writing. Bassiri begins to exhibit in 1981 by participating in personal and collective exhibitions. Among the main museums and cultural institutions in which he exhibited are mentioned: Academy of France, Villa Medici, Rome; Arsaevi, Collegiumartisticum, Sarajevo (Bosnia); Borholms Kunstmuseum, Borholms (Denmark); Ca ‘Pesaro – International Gallery of Modern Art, Venice; Center of Art Contemporain, Thiers (France); Center for Contemporary Art Luigi Pecci, Prato; Contemporary Art Center BM, Tophane-I Amaire, Istanbul (Türkiye); National Gallery of Umbria, Perugia; Kunsthalle, Vienna (Austria); Macro Testaccio, Rome; National Archaeological Museum of Naples; Museum Van Hedendaagse Kunst, Gand (Belgium); Sala dei Cinquecento, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence; Smak, STADELIJK MUSEUM Voor Actuele Kunst, Gand (Belgium); Tehran (Iran) Contemporary Art Museum, Tehran (Iran).
In 2017 he was invited, as the only artist, to represent Iran at the 57th Venice Biennale with the exhibition Tapesh, The Golden Reserve of Magmatic Thoughtedited by Majid Mollanoruzi. In 2019 he presented the personal exhibition Meteorite Narvaloedited by Gabriella Belli, near Ca ‘Pesaro International Gallery of Modern Art, Venice and the personal exhibition The nightedited by Bruno Corà, at the National Museum of Iran, Tehran. In 2022 he participated in collective exhibitions: Numinousedited by Giorgio Verzotti, near Building, Milan and the Basilica of San Celso, Milan; The light of blackedited by Bruno Corà, at the Burri Foundation, ex -annoying of Tobacco, Città di Castello (Perugia). In 2023 he presented the personal exhibition Sokutat the Hash Cheshme Art Space, Kashan (Iran).
Carlo Franza