Tala Madani
Born 1981 in Tehran, Iran. Lives and works in Los Angeles.
Tala Madani's work brings together various modes of critique about gender, particularly masculine and feminine stereotypes, as well as questioning westernised idealistic notions of childhood, family and the art historical canon. Her work is inflected with a peevish sense of humour and brings to bear basic human feelings and emotions, such as anxiety, anger, fear, isolation, paranoia, envy and lust. Madani received her MFA from Yale University School of Art in 2006.
Current and recent solo shows include: Shitty Disco, National Museum of Contemporary Art Αthens (ΕΜΣΤ), Athens (2024); Biscuits, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2022); Kunstmuseum Den Haag (KM21), The Hague, Netherlands (2022); Longlati Foundation (2021); Pilar Corrias, London (2021); Start Museum, Shanghai (2020); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2019); Vienna Secessions, Vienna (2019); Portikus, Frankfurt (2019); MO Museum, Vilnius (2018); La Panacée, Montpellier (2017); MIT Visual Arts Center, Cambridge (2016); Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville (2014); Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham (2014); Moderna Museet Malmö & Stockholm (2013), and Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam (2011).
Selected group exhibitions include: Burning Down the House: Rethinking Family, Kunstmuseum St.Gallen (2024); Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood, Hayward Gallery touring to Arnolifini, Bristol (2024); Darker, Lighter, Puffy, Flat, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2024); La Morsure des Termites (The Termites’ Bites), Palais de Tokyo (2023); Keep Calm and Give a Shit, Buk-SeMA Seoul Museum of Art (2023); In First Person Plural, MACRO Museum (2023); Let The Sunshine In, Pilar Corrias (2023); Trouble wandering (to eternity), Kasteel Wijlre Museum, Wijlre, The Netherlands (2022); In the Heart of Another Country: The Diasporic Imagination in the Sharjah Art Foundation Collection, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, DE (2022); In a Dream You Saw a Way to Survive and You Were Full of Joy, The Contemporary Austin, Austin (2022); Anticorps, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2020); Radical Figures: painting in the New Millennium, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2020); Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2017); The Great Acceleration: Art in the Anthropocene, Taipei Biennial (curated by Nicholas Bourriaud), Taipei (2014); Made in L.A. 2014, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2014); Where are we Now?, 5th Marrakech Biennale, Marrakech (2014); PLAY! Recapturing the Radical Imaginiation, Göteborg Biennial, Göteborg (2013); The Future Generation Prize, Venice; (2013); Speech Matters, Danish Pavilion at the 54th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venice (2011); The Great New York, MoMA PS1, New York (2010); 4th Tirana International Contemporary Art Biennial, Tirana (2009); Greater New Younger than Jesus, New Museum, New York (2009).
Madani was awarded the Tiffany Foundation Biennial Grant (2014), the Catherine Doctorow Prize for Contemporary Painting (2013), the De Volkskrant Art Award (2012), shortlisted for the Future Generation Art Prize, Pinchuk Art Centre (2012), the Van den Berch van Heemstede Stichting Fellowship (2008), and the Kees Verwey Fellowship (2007). She was artist in residence at the British School of Rome (2010), and The Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam (2007).