Nairy Baghramian

Nairy Baghramian, German artist (born in Iran to an Armenian family in 1971), fled post-revolutionary Iran as a teenager and has lived and worked in Berlin since 1984. Baghramian's work comprises sculpture, Installation, drawing and photography. Her work addresses temporal, spatial and social relationships to language, history, and the present, with forms which materialize in response to contextual conditions or the premises of a given medium. These structures offer the possibility of an open and discursive dialogue in response to a site, or a freeing of the assigned relationship between an object and its meaning.

Recent solo shows include Marian Goodman Gallery, New York (2026), WIELS, Brussels, Belgium (2025); South London Gallery, UK (2024); The Façade Commission, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2023); Aspen Art Museum, Colorado (2023); Carré d’Art, Nimes, France (2022); Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas (2022); Secession, Vienna, Austria (2021); Galleria d'Arte Moderna (GAM), Milan, Italy (2021); MUDAM Luxembourg, Luxembourg (2019); Palacio de Cristal, Madrid, Spain (2018); the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota (2017); Statens Museum for Kunst, National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark (2017); Museum of Contemporary Art, Ghent, Belgium (2016); Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zürich, Switzerland (2016); Museo Tamayo, Mexico City, Mexico (2015); The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois (2014); Serralves Museum, Porto, Portugal (2014); MIT Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts (2013); Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany (2012); The Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada (2012); Serpentine Gallery, London, UK (2010); and Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (2006).

Her work has also been featured in major outdoor and site-specific installations, including presentations at Kistefos Sculpture Park, Norway (2025); Qatar Museums, Qatar (2025); Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden at MoMA, New York (2023); and The Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts (2020).

Baghramian has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Art Basel Awards Gold Award (2025); Honorary Doctorate from Lund University (2025); Aspen Award for Art (2023); Nivola Award for Sculpture (2023); Nasher Prize Laureate (2022); the Malcom-McLaren-Award with Maria Hassabi (2019); the Zurich Art Prize (2016); the Arnold-Bode Prize, Kassel (2014); the Hector Prize, Kunsthalle Mannheim (2012); and the Ernst Schering Foundation Award (2007). She has participated in the Yorkshire Sculpture International at The Hepworth Wakefield, UK (2019); Venice Biennale, Italy (2019 and 2011); Documenta 14 in Kassel, Germany and Athens, Greece (2017); Skulptur Projekt Munster, Germany (2017 and 2007); Lyon Biennale, France (2017); the 8th and 5th Berlin Biennale, Germany (2014 and 2008); and Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art, Scotland (2012).