Homage to Marian Goodman

Nairy Baghramian , Marian Goodman

At the time of the interview, Marian Goodman, Nairy Baghramian’s longtime gallerist, had just passed away. The artist asked me to dedicate this article to her. “She was not an artist, but she sculpted my life.”

Prizes and recognition

Nairy Baghramian (born 1971) is a collector—a collector of prizes and recognitions. The German artist, born in Iran, received the Gold Medal at the inaugural Art Basel Awards in December 2025, presented in Miami by the multinational fair. In 2024, the Department of Fine Arts at Lund University in Sweden awarded her its highest distinction, an honorary doctorate. In 2022, she received what is widely considered the most prestigious prize in the field of sculpture, the Nasher Prize, awarded by the Dallas institution devoted to three-dimensional art.

Moma and Met

One could go on listing honors, or mention her sculptures installed in some of the world’s most prestigious locations, such as the gardens of the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2023, or on the façade of the Metropolitan Museum in 2024. Yet in Paris, apart from her gallery, Marian Goodman, there has never been an opportunity to see her work. Still, just one hour and fifteen minutes away by train, the Brussels art center WIELS—a spectacular former brewery with glass walls—is hosting, through March 1, a major exhibition devoted to her.

A world unlike we have seen before

Let us be clear: Nairy Baghramian is not an easy artist. At first glance, visitors may feel perplexed. Yet it quickly becomes apparent that she creates abstract, colorful sculptures that open onto a world unlike any we have seen before. This is the hallmark of a major artist. She is fully aware of the sense of disorientation her installation can provoke.

Certainly not empty

“I’ve heard people say it’s a quiet exhibition—some might even think it’s an empty exhibition. That impression can arise only in the very first moment. Today we seem compelled to make everything explicit, everything defined and classified. But once you begin to search, or allow yourself to be guided by the works, by the space, by the light, or simply let yourself drift, you discover that it is certainly not empty.”

Nameless ?

In what once served as silos, Nairy has installed a vast neon bearing the exhibition’s title: Nameless. Indeed, whichever floor you observe it from, you can perceive only fragments of the word in monumental scale. This is deliberate. The letters are distorted and viewpoints restricted. It is mystery that catches the eye and allows poetry to emerge. “I use words as forms,” she explains.

Fragments of bodies

Inside, one gradually yields to the unsettling pull of forms and colors. She has conceived large boxes of gleaming aluminum, set in precarious balance. They resemble metallic replicas of torn-open cardboard boxes. They serve as casings for what might be imagined as stylized hams or fragments of bodies hanging from rails—abstract forms made of an artificial, deep-blue material.

Translucent membrane

The contrast between drawing, hue, and substance disorients the viewer in their search for an explanation of the piece. That is Baghramian: suspicion, mystery. She has also devised works that take the form of paintings composed of a translucent membrane—paraffin, in fact—into which she has injected an undefined, pastel-colored substance, lending a surreal accent to her practice.

 Jean Arp

As when she uses clips ordinarily employed in prosthetics to bind together two parts of cloud-like, polychrome forms. Indeed, her work readily references Jean Arp (1886–1966), the sculptor close to André Breton’s circle, known for his free, organic forms.

Nairy Baghramian has invented a new kind of object—remarkable, often tactile, and always askew.

Through March 1, 2026.