Shila Khatami – Straight Edge

Geometry between Life and Art The works of Shila Khatami (b. Saarbrücken, Germany, 1979, lives and works in Berlin) bring the geometric shapes she encounters in everyday life into focus. The artist is fascinated by the purposes this visual vocabulary has served in different contexts: from the historic constructivists and their failed ambitions to change society to the reemergence of geometry in industrial and product design in the 1950s and again in the 1980s and the variety of geometric design elements in today’s world. ‚I take an analytical approach to these colorful forms and their new significance, studying their art-historical roots, and then make fragmentary transfers-the black-and-white checkered flag waved at the finish line of Formula 1 races, for example, looks like it might be an archetype of abstract painting.‘ Khatami usually carries a camera as she goes about her daily life to take pictures of shapes that strike her eye and suggest art-historical references. This monograph on the artist is the first to present these photographs in addition to selected works, exhibition views, and pictures from her studio and sheds light on her creative engagement with the geometric visual repertoire on which she draws and illustrate the transformative process from the color and materiality of the source to the finished painting. A focus on selected details traces the complete trajectory from the initial compositional inspiration and the genesis of the painting to its presentation in the exhibition. Konrad Bitterli and Andreas Schlaegel contributed essays on Khatami’s art.