Siah Armajani

Armajani, Siah b. July 10, 1939 d. August 27, 2020 Siah Armajani, the internationally known sculptor and public artist, died on August 27. He was 81. The cause was heart failure, from which he suffered throughout his life due to rheumatic fever he contracted in Iran when he was just fifteen. He died suddenly at his home in Minneapolis, with his wife of 54 years, Barbara Bauer Armajani, at his side. Armajani came to Saint Paul from Tehran in 1960 to attend Macalester College, where he graduated in 1963, majoring in philosophy. He was also a graduate of The Alborz School in Tehran and studied philosophy for two years at the University of Tehran before emigrating to the US. It was in Minnesota, and as a student, that he met his beloved "Barbee," a successful retail executive at Dayton Hudson who would later launch Galleria's lauded Ampersand. The Armajanis were deeply devoted to one another as a couple, and theirs was a remarkable love story that spanned six decades. While often shy and soft-spoken in public settings, Armajani could be sharp and precise in his words and pointed critiques. He was governed by a profound integrity and a deep social and political conscience. His self-acknowledged passion for democracy informed his life and art. He was a writer, a teacher, a philosopher and a poet, whose artistic practice emerged innately and without formal study. Working at the intersection of diverse disciplines, his media was wide-ranging and encompassed painting, drawing, film, sculpture, architecture and numerous public art projects. A leading figure of the public art movement in the 1980s, Armajani collaborated with visual artist Scott Burton and architect Cesar Pelli to design the first major public waterfront plaza in built on the Hudson River in Battery Park. He was awarded numerous public commissions around the world. Between 1970 and 2019, he created some 70 public worksoutdoor gardens, gazebos, plazas, and bridgesincluding the Storm King Art Center in upstate New York, the Atlanta Commission for the 1996 Olympics, Germany's Skulptur Projekte Münster, and the iconic Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge, one of the inaugural commissions for the new Minneapolis Sculpture Garden when it opened in 1988. For 60 years, Armajani based a successful international career from his adopted city of Minneapolis, which he loved dearly. He recorded its urban architecture, paid tribute to its fallen figures, explored its civic complexities, and spoke directly to the American experience of immigration. Building the bridge for the people of Minneapolis was, in his words, "a thrill" and a testament to his personal manifesto to make a public art that was at its core democratic, and, in his words "open, available, useful and common" and accessible to every individual. In his downtown Minneapolis studio, Armajani was a generous host to other artists. He relished serving decadent desserts as a prelude to any visit. He inhabited his studio daily, which remains filled with sculptures, works in process, and models for future and utopian projects. Among his last sculptural works were the final "tombs" for his ongoing "Tomb series," completed in 2014, which paid tribute to the philosophers, activists, poets and thinkers who were foundational to his art and ideology, and "Seven Rooms for Hospitality," 2015-present, pieces that addressed forced migration and the current global refugee crisis. In 2018, the Walker Art Center presented "Follow This Line," a much-anticipated survey of his 60-year career organized in partnership with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and curated by Victoria Sung of the Walker and Clare Davies of the Met. In concert, Nicholas Baume of the New York Public Art Fund rebuilt Armajani's public sculpture, Bridge Over Tree, in Brooklyn Bridge Park, which was initially presented at the Walker in 1970. As part of the recent renovation of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, the Minnesota Department of Transportation generously restored the Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge to the artist's preferred, original palette. The Walker's former executive director, Olga Viso, who initiated the multi-pronged retrospective notes: "I am so pleased that the Walker was able to mount this fitting tribute in Siah's lifetime and that he and Barbara were able to experience these events together. I have lost a dear friend, and the world has lost one of the great giants on the international cultural stage. Siah's humanist art and his belief in art's democratizing potential have left an impactful legacy for our time." For 24 years, Armajani worked closely with gallerist Max Protetch, the founder of Max Protetch Gallery, and his colleague Josie Browne. In recent years he was represented by Rossi & Rossi Gallery of Hong Kong and London. His art has been championed by many international curators, especially Ziba Ardalan of the Parasol unit in London and Christian Bernard, the former director of the Musée d'Art modern et contemporain in Geneva, Switzerland, a museum that holds a large collection of Armajani's work along with the Walker. Siah Armajani is survived by his brother Robert Bahman Armajani as well as many nephews and nieces. He was pre-deceased by his parents Agakhan and Saltanat Armajani and his brother Manuch and sister Pari. A private service for family will be held in Minneapolis. Donations are encouraged to the Walker Art Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the New York Public Art Fund. The family is grateful for the 35 years of care administered by the staff of the Minneapolis Heart Institute at Abbott Hospital and Drs. Michael Samara and Robert Van Tassel.

Tributes

Siah Armajani

July 10, 1939 - August 27, 2020

Tributes

Siah Armajani

July 10, 1939 - August 27, 2020

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