The new shapes and sentiments that spill out from artist Shahryar Nashat’s artistic output of the last eight years

Bodies function, fight and fail. People bear witness to these processes every day, actively and passively, in the flesh and on-screen. But bodies are also unruly: they desire and shapeshift and betray. This oscillation between the realities of mortal progression and everything that transpires in those indeterminate zones serves as the basis for the visceral practice of Swiss artist Shahryar Nashat (born 1975). This monograph surveys Nashat’s artistic output of the last eight years. The book is copublished by Kunsthalle Basel and Swiss Institute, where Nashat had solo exhibitions. But, while the two exhibitions are the occasion for publishing this book, the contents here far surpass them: twelve of Nashat’s works made between 2012 and 2020 are examined across six essays and one conversation, each of which forges a new reading of what is at stake in the artist’s oeuvre.