Siah Armajani

Siavash "Siah" Armajani (Persian: سیاوش ارمجانی; 10 July 1939[1] – 27 August 2020)[2] was an Iranian-born American sculptor and architect known for his public art.

[4] He began his art career making small collages in the late 1950s, visually mirroring Persian miniatures and political posters, to spread his vision of democracy and secularism and to publicize his party the National Front.

[2] In 1970, Armajani contributed two works to the Museum of Modern Art exhibition Information: first, A Number Between Zero and One, a 9-foot (2.7 m) high column filled with computer printouts of individual decimal numbers; and second, North Dakota Tower, a proposed spire 18 miles (29 km) high and 2 miles (3.2 km) wide calculated to cast a narrow shadow over the entire length of North Dakota from east to west.

[7] In 1988, he designed the Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge in Minneapolis, uniting two neighborhoods previously separated by 16 lanes of streets and highway.

[8] And in 1993, he built on one side in Loring Park, the pavilion Gazebo for Four Anarchists: Mary Nardini, Irma Sanchini, William James Sidis, Carlo Valdinoci.

[2] An exhibition at Muelensteen Gallery in 2011 presented a dozen of Armajani's early pieces made between 1957 and 1962, created in the years leading up to his arrival in America.

[16] The Minneapolis Institute of Art holds several works: Skyway No.2 (1980), a 5-foot (1.5 m) mahogany and brass portal; Mississippi Delta (2005-2006), a colored pencil on Mylar triptych picturing the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; and An Exile Dreaming of Saint Adorno (2009), a cage-like inhabited tiny house or stage named for Theodor W.

[20] Siah Armajani: Follow This Line, the first comprehensive US retrospective dedicated to the artist, was on view at the Walker Art Center September 9 through December 30, 2018,[21] and at the Met Breuer February 20 through June 2, 2019.