Handle With Care by Yaazd Contractor
The most striking elements among the carefully selected components that are on show at Method are the contrasting relationships of the objects: cinder and glass, mass produced prefabricated steel parts and the in-danger-of-extinction art of cold cathode neon, the long yet ethereal duration of digital images and the quick withering of flowers, etc. Admittedly, this list could go on, but to limit our reading of the upcoming exhibition to any such narrative would be to restrict what the work is capable of doing. Instead, I invite the viewer to approach the show not with the perspective of an outsider looking in, doing their best to extract and impose some foreign meaning to the show, but to take on the challenge of looking at the exhibition precisely as the show title suggests: with care.
The work of Yaazd Contractor, both solo and through the lens of The Back Studio, puts itself there for us to experience entirely without pretension. Because although the work is bespoke and of the highest quality, it does not speak the lofty language of the conceptual artist or the pedantic designer. Instead, flower vases, 3D models, and neon components all speak transparently of the process of their making, they speak of construction, decay and tenderness: they speak of a mode of making and doing which can only be achieved through dedicated care. So to experience this show with care… to; so to speak; handle it with care, is to sit with the work in the shoes of a curator (one who cares), a maker-thinker who takes pride in the careful bringing together of both object and concept, and who hopes that the vibrations of the neon lights or the glint of colour reflected on the aluminum sheets is enough to speak for itself. So take a moment to experience this show from far away and from up close, with your eyes and your ears and your skin and your nose, but most of all, in companionship to the work itself. Allow yourself to stop interpreting and simply feel a part of its composition, feel like just another one of the elements which make it possible.
- Michel Gantous, 2022
Venue : Method Kala Ghoda
Dates : 8th December 2022 to 3rd January 2023
About The Artist
Yaazd Contractor (Mumbai, India - 1996) disputes the intrinsic dissonance between art and functionality. His creations carefully balance and represent duality between rigid, structural implementations of art while still exploring the permeability of clinical mediums such as prefabricated hardware and construction materials. All of Contractor’s projects coexist between the digital as well as the physical world where they fall out of their real-world applications and into heterotopias of their own.
He co-founded Interim Space (2021) an artist-run alternative arts space, currently inhabiting a temporary structure in Mumbai. He is also part of the back studio (2019) an artist duo, creating a repertoire of assemblages that are simultaneously sculptural and functional.
Yaazd has exhibited and installed his work internationally in galleries, festivals, screenings, fairs, concerts, malls, offices and homes.
Shows
group
2019 - Future is Here, Mumbai - Kamalnayan Bajaj Art Gallery, mumbai gallery week
2019 - was/is, Brooklyn - Wanted Design, New York Design Week
2021 - BRIGHT-LINE, Chicago - Latent Space
2021 - Design of Today, Turin - Project_To, Palazzo Martini di Cigala
2021 - Neon and Light Museum, Chicago - Ken Saunders
2021 - JONALD DUDD for NYC Design Week, New York - Canal Street Market
2022 - ALCOVA for Salone del Mobile, Milan - Curated Selection, Centro Ospedaliero Militare di Baggio
Solo
2020 - Emission Lines, Chicago - Ground Level Platform
2022 - Everything Can Be Taken Apart, Milan - Salotto Studio, Riviera
2022 - Handle With Care - Method Kala Ghoda