Biography
Through painting and animation, Tala Madani’s work raises pertinent questions and offers a critique of gender and politics that reflects on who and what is represented in art. Her approach to figuration is a tangible critique of masculine modernism infused with a contemporary sense of sequencing, movement and visceral speed.
Her work has been featured in several solo exhibitions, including Oven Light, Portikus, Frankfurt (2019); Corner Projections, 303 Gallery, New York (2018); La Panacée, Centre de Culture Contemporaine, Montpellier, France (2017); Shitty Disco, Pilar Corrias, London (2016); First Light, Contemporary Art Museum, Missouri (2016); Smiley has no nose, David Kordansky Gallery, California (2015); and Tala Madani: Catherine Doctorow Prize for Contemporary Painting, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (2013). Her work has also been featured in group exhibitions including Radical Figures: Painting in the New Millennium, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2020); All of Them Witches, Jeffrey Deitch, California (2020); Personal Private Public, Hauser & Wirth, New York (2019); For a Multitude of Futures: Overcome The Limits of Immorality, The Ural Industrial Biennial, Russia (2019); The Seventh Continent, 16th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (2019); On Vulnerability and Doubt, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2019); Dirty Protest, Hammer Museum, California (2019); and Within Genres, Pérez Art Museum Miami (2018).
Her work can be found in the collections of Bard Collection, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; Hall Art Foundation, New York; Hammer Museum, California; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; LUMA Foundation, Zurich; Moderna Museet Collection, Stockholm/Malmo, Sweden; Museum of Contemporary Art, California; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Victoria, Australia; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tate Modern, London; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Madani earned a BA in Political Science from Oregon State University (2004). She received a BFA in Visual Arts from Oregon State University (2004) and an MFA in Painting from Yale University School of Art, Connecticut (2006).
Born in 1981 in Tehran, she currently lives and works in California.
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Tala Madani: Corner Projection (Panic)(2019)
Through painting and animation, Tala Madani’s work raises pertinent questions and offers a critique of gender and politics which reflects on who and what is represented in art.