Zarouhie Abdalian

Artworks
Biography
Zarouhie Abdalian
 
 
 
Zarouhie Abdalian (b. 1982) lives and works in New Orleans. The artist typically employs modest materials to produce subtle conceptual or formal effects that stage an alteration or a shift of perception within the immediate environment. Rooted in the particularities of site and context, her work often responds to the specific attributes of a given location, architectural setting, or social landscape. Using sound, performance and sculpture, she draws attention to the overlooked by framing a space and restoring forgotten aspects of its layered history. In this capacity, Abdalian explores the concept of labor and the movement of objects and resources in support of said labor. (Courtesy of Altman Siegel)

Abdalian has exhibited her work at numerous international venues and biennials, including San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Secession, Vienna; Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco; 2017 Whitney Biennial, New York; MOSTYN, Wales; the 5th Ural Industrial Biennial, Ekaterinburg, Russia; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), North Adams; Prospect.3 Biennial, New Orleans; the 8th Berlin Biennale; 9th Shanghai Biennale; CAFAM Biennale, Beijing; and the 12th Istanbul Biennial. Previous solo exhibitions include Haynes Court, Chicago (2022); Altman Siegel, San Francisco (2021); Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans (2018); LAXART, Los Angeles (2017); The Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (2017); and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (2013). Abdalian was a 2017–2018 Pollock-Krasner Foundation grantee and 2020 recipient of a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant.
 
Her work is held in public collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Mills College Art Museum, Oakland; and Berkeley Art Museum. Select publications include Artforum, Art in America, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, Art Review and The Wire.
Select Collections & Exhibitions
Zarouhie Abdalian

Solo

Bells for Baku, London, Louisiana, Pippy Houldsworth, London (2023)
art and facts, Altman Siegel, San Francisco (2022)
Interregna, Haynes Court, Chicago (2022)
Bells for York, Coleman Center for the Arts, York, AL (2022)
Production, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans (2021)
Work, LAXART (now The Brick), Los Angeles (2017)
To History, Altman Siegel, San Francisco (2017)
Simple Machines, Cushion Works, San Francisco (2017)
Transport Empty, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland (2017)
A Betrayal, Clifton Benevento, New York (2017)
MATRIX: Zarouhie Abdalian, Berkeley Art Museum (2013)

Group

Ring Ring Ring, pal projects, Paris (2023)
How We Gather, Mandeville Art Gallery, UC San Diego (2023)
From the Collection, Kadist, San Francisco (2023)
Follow the String, Marin MOCA, Novato, CA (2022)
Put It This Way: (Re) Visions of the Hirschhorn Collection, Washington DC (2022)
Resonance of Place, CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco (2022)

The Artist's Eye, BAMPFA, Berkely, CA (2022)
Iridescence & The Rising Wave, Shimmer, Rotterdam (2020)
Another Idea, Gray Center, Chicago (2020)
Double Cola, Regards, Chicago (2019)
Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2017)
A Slow Succession with Many Interruptions, SFMOMA, San Francisco (2016)
On my volcano grows the Grass, Artist Curated Projects, Los Angeles (2016)
Prospect.3, Notes for Now, New Orleans (2014)
8th Berlin Biennale, Berlin, Germany (2014)
2012 SECA Art Award, SFMOMA, San Francisco (2013)
Shanghai Biennial: Reactivation, Shanghai, China (2012)
When Attitudes Become Form Become Attitudes, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, San Francisco (2012)
Moscow International Bienniale for Young Art, Moscow (2012)
Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, Turkey (2011)
Painted Over/Under, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (2010)

Collections

Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
101 Collection, Artnow International, San Francisco, CA
Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA
Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA