March 13, 2025
Hadi Falapishi
Edge of the World
Blum
January 18 - March 22, 2025
Hadi Falapishi
Hadi Falapishi was Born in Iran in 1978 to two photographers and later studied photography at Bard College where he received an MFA in 2013. Now residing in Brooklyn, his multi-disciplinary practice has grown beyond photography and now includes painting and ceramics. At Blum, he presents three related, but stylistically different bodies of work — globe-shaped ceramic sculptures on rectangular pedestals, childlike and cartoony images painted on cardboard, as well as hyperreal, Surrealist inspired paintings that play off iconic works by René Magritte.
On one wall in the exhibition are modest-sized, representational paintings, many of which feature the artist's head or full body inserted into appropriated commercial and art historical imagery. Professional Painter in a Calvin Klein Ad, (all works 2024) features the artist dressed in a formal black suit staring directly out of the painting. He holds a long flaming matchstick that may have been used to light the candle on the nearby mantlepiece. Like the suit, the setting is formal. Though casually posed, the artist appears out of place. For Professional Painter in a False Mirror, Falapishi fills a black dot (the center of the eye in Magritte's original) with his head. Similarly in Professional Painter and a Mysterious Horizon, as well as Professional Painter Talking to the Therapist he changes Magritte's work slightly. In Talking to the Therapist he swaps his head for one of the caged birds in the interior of the cage while in and a Mysterious Horizon, he uses his own image in place of the three men Magritte depicted. By titling these works "Professional Painter ..." he not only celebrates his dexterity as a painter but also equates his paintings with iconic Surrealist works.
In contrast to these realistic paintings, displayed on adjacent walls are funky cut outs — painted cardboard adhered to wood panel — where cartoon figures and animals frolic. As easily as he borrows from Surrealism, Falapishi also appropriates Western films like "High Noon." In his rendition of High Noon, he assembles a cast of cut out characters and locates them in a barren landscape with a flatly painted gray rock and yellow mountains in the distance. The action takes place upon a brown ground under a red sky. A cowboy stands upon the rock as if scanning the distance as a woman rests against its side petting a smiling dog. A cat peers out from the other side of the rock. In the sky are clouds, birds and an airplane, as well as an orange sun. In High Hopes, a smiling man and woman sporting cowboy hats are seated on a horse jumping over a section of fence. The sky here is pink and the ground a bright green. Again, Falapishi includes a yellow mountain and orange sun as well as blue and white clouds. The large horizontal work Smoke Break spans 88 inches. Two crudely painted characters dominate the composition. One lights the cigarette of the other in a mostly barren landscape divided in half — yellow sky and brown ground with two horses and pink mountains rising off the horizon in the distance. In the past Falapishi's characters included a range of humans, cats, dogs, horses and mice enacting themes of displacement, alienation and entrapment. The figures and animals that populate his current images appear relaxed and at ease while enjoying basking in the sun or sleeping by a campfire in a desert landscape.
Placed on pedestals in a line down the center of the gallery are Falapishi's ceramic globes all titled Edge of the World. In these pieces, he juxtaposes his cartoony figures now etched into ceramic and glazed in bright colors with quirky three dimensional sculpted figures that balance on top of the large ceramic balls. In Edge of the World #5 a man and woman are positioned head to toe encircling the center of the globe which has a brown base and a light purple sky. At the top Falapishi positions a thin, tall patterned vessel shaped like a bong. At the top of this sits a male figure holding another vessel in his arms.
Falapishi knows exactly what he is doing and by combining disparate styles and materials, he states not only am I a "professional painter," but I know how to have fun and poke fun. He combines high and low art styles making realist paintings, sophisticated ceramics and naive cut outs that tell similar stories in different ways.
Edge of the World
Blum
January 18 - March 22, 2025
Hadi Falapishi
Hadi Falapishi was Born in Iran in 1978 to two photographers and later studied photography at Bard College where he received an MFA in 2013. Now residing in Brooklyn, his multi-disciplinary practice has grown beyond photography and now includes painting and ceramics. At Blum, he presents three related, but stylistically different bodies of work — globe-shaped ceramic sculptures on rectangular pedestals, childlike and cartoony images painted on cardboard, as well as hyperreal, Surrealist inspired paintings that play off iconic works by René Magritte.
On one wall in the exhibition are modest-sized, representational paintings, many of which feature the artist's head or full body inserted into appropriated commercial and art historical imagery. Professional Painter in a Calvin Klein Ad, (all works 2024) features the artist dressed in a formal black suit staring directly out of the painting. He holds a long flaming matchstick that may have been used to light the candle on the nearby mantlepiece. Like the suit, the setting is formal. Though casually posed, the artist appears out of place. For Professional Painter in a False Mirror, Falapishi fills a black dot (the center of the eye in Magritte's original) with his head. Similarly in Professional Painter and a Mysterious Horizon, as well as Professional Painter Talking to the Therapist he changes Magritte's work slightly. In Talking to the Therapist he swaps his head for one of the caged birds in the interior of the cage while in and a Mysterious Horizon, he uses his own image in place of the three men Magritte depicted. By titling these works "Professional Painter ..." he not only celebrates his dexterity as a painter but also equates his paintings with iconic Surrealist works.
In contrast to these realistic paintings, displayed on adjacent walls are funky cut outs — painted cardboard adhered to wood panel — where cartoon figures and animals frolic. As easily as he borrows from Surrealism, Falapishi also appropriates Western films like "High Noon." In his rendition of High Noon, he assembles a cast of cut out characters and locates them in a barren landscape with a flatly painted gray rock and yellow mountains in the distance. The action takes place upon a brown ground under a red sky. A cowboy stands upon the rock as if scanning the distance as a woman rests against its side petting a smiling dog. A cat peers out from the other side of the rock. In the sky are clouds, birds and an airplane, as well as an orange sun. In High Hopes, a smiling man and woman sporting cowboy hats are seated on a horse jumping over a section of fence. The sky here is pink and the ground a bright green. Again, Falapishi includes a yellow mountain and orange sun as well as blue and white clouds. The large horizontal work Smoke Break spans 88 inches. Two crudely painted characters dominate the composition. One lights the cigarette of the other in a mostly barren landscape divided in half — yellow sky and brown ground with two horses and pink mountains rising off the horizon in the distance. In the past Falapishi's characters included a range of humans, cats, dogs, horses and mice enacting themes of displacement, alienation and entrapment. The figures and animals that populate his current images appear relaxed and at ease while enjoying basking in the sun or sleeping by a campfire in a desert landscape.
Placed on pedestals in a line down the center of the gallery are Falapishi's ceramic globes all titled Edge of the World. In these pieces, he juxtaposes his cartoony figures now etched into ceramic and glazed in bright colors with quirky three dimensional sculpted figures that balance on top of the large ceramic balls. In Edge of the World #5 a man and woman are positioned head to toe encircling the center of the globe which has a brown base and a light purple sky. At the top Falapishi positions a thin, tall patterned vessel shaped like a bong. At the top of this sits a male figure holding another vessel in his arms.
Falapishi knows exactly what he is doing and by combining disparate styles and materials, he states not only am I a "professional painter," but I know how to have fun and poke fun. He combines high and low art styles making realist paintings, sophisticated ceramics and naive cut outs that tell similar stories in different ways.