Parviz Tanavoli

ISSUE#1

 

The Grand Book of Heech

Parviz Tanavoli

2014

 

A sculptural book, The Grand Book of Heech pushes the boundaries of the media book and sculpture. Tanavoli has examined the morph of Heech (means Nothing in Farsi) in different media and positions. In this work, The 15-pages book gradually and page by page dissolves from relief of a full shape Heech to flat blank pages and vice versa, illustrating the philosophy behind Tanavoli’s concept: “the universe began with nothing and will end in nothing.”

The paper and the cover of the book are handmade of hemp, manually processed from plant and they are pasted on the molds created by Tanavoli at his studio in Tehran through more than a year since early 2013. Although it is an ancient and traditional technique, the challenge was to mold the paper paste to such high relief. The binding is also of traditional Persian origins with goatskin. The book is in edition of 30.

 

Collections:

The British Museum, London, United Kingdom

 

Exhibitions:

Iranian Voices: Recent Acquisitions of Works on Paper, The British Museum, 2016-2017

Parviz Tanavoli

Parviz Tanavoli is considered to be Iran’s foremost sculptor. He has been exhibited internationally on all continents and is often displayed in some of the leading museums around the globe including the British Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art New York, and the Museum of Modern Art Vienna. His Heech series is his most recognized series of sculptures to date, depicting the word Heech in Farsi (meaning nothingness) in various shapes, sizes, and positions.