- Artist
- Shirazeh Houshiary born 1955
- Medium
- Chalk, graphite, paper and acrylic paint on paper
- Dimensions
- Support: 379 × 576 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Presented by the Weltkunst Foundation 1987
- Reference
- T05016
Catalogue entry
T05016 Beating of her Wings III 1987
Black chalk, pencil, silver acrylic paint and collage on brown paper 379 × 576 (15 × 22 3/4)
Various inscriptions in Persian in various places and inscribed ‘Shirazeh Houshiary’ in pencil on back b.r.
Presented by the Weltkunst Foundation 1987
Exh: Shirazeh Houshiary: Breath, Lisson Gallery, Sept.–Oct. 1987 (no number)
Repr: Shirazeh Houshiary, exh. cat., Centre d'art contemporain, Geneva 1988, p.35 (col.)
In T05016 a large silver-coloured wing dominates the right half of the paper, its tip touching the top of the sheet. At the wing's base the artist has roughly drawn the outline of three smaller wings. The large wing is surrounded at its edges by a poem, inscribed by the artist in pencil, taken from Divan Shams, a collection of poems in Persian by the thirteenth-century mystic Jalalu'ddin Rumi. To the left Houshiary has glued a sheet of tracing paper on which she has drawn in pencil wings similar to those depicted on the right, although here the wings are shown in rapid flight. This sense of energetic movement is emphasised by the sweeping brush strokes of adhesive which are visible through the thin tracing paper. The same poem is also inscribed on this collage.
T05016 is one of at least eleven works on paper made by the artist between 1985 and 1987, that, together with a group of sculptures, addressed the subject of the angel (see entries on T05022, T05013-T05015 and T05017). Seven sculptures refer directly to an angel or to angel's wings in their titles. T05016 is one of four works on paper that relate to the theme of ‘Beating of her Wings’. Unlike T05014 and T05015, T05016 is literal in its depiction of wings.
The artist has approved this entry.
Published in:
Tate Gallery: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions 1986-88, London 1996
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