Matter and Mind is a 640 × 480 × 30 centimetre steel basin filled with used engine oil. Over time, a ritual came to be when visitors started throwing coins and other things into the oil pool, turning the sculpture into an unwilling wishing well. 40 years on, Shirin Sabahi invited Haraguchi back to the museum to restore his oil pool. The sunken objects were retrieved from the pool and two films were made in the process.
With contributions by Negar Azimi, Media Farzin, Farnoosh Fathi, David Galloway, Adam Kleinman, Edit Molnár, Shirin Sabahi and Sissel Tolaas, this book hosts a previously unpublished booklet by the first chief curator of the museum. This inclusion follows the enveloping logic of the project, where Sabahi’s films, Haraguchi’s sculpture and the objects it holds sequentially encase one another.
About the Author
Shirin Sabahi is an artist and filmmaker. Her works often derive from a physical place and include films and its byproducts around artefacts and architecture and their legibility and outreach.
Curated by Murtaza Vali in conjunction with the exhibition ‘Crude,’ two recent films by Sabahi exploring the work of Noriyuki Haraguchi and the life of his permanent installation, Matter and Mind, were brought together in a film programme at Jameel Arts Centre. Together Sabahi’s serene films meditate on the undeniable seductive materiality and magic of both oil and art.
About the Publisher
Roma Publications is an Amsterdam-based art publisher founded in 1998 by graphic designer Roger Willems and artists Mark Manders and Marc Nagtzaam. It is used as a platform to produce and distribute autonomous publications made in close collaboration with a growing number of artists, institutions, writers and designers. Occasionally, Roma also curates exhibitions.
