Sol Hashemi: “Afterwards, what comes before is different”

James Harris Gallery is pleased to announce our third exhibition by artist Sol Hashemi: Afterwards, What Comes Before is Different. Continuing a framework developed for his previous show at the gallery titled Serving Suggestions, Hashemi provides optional methods for displaying his photographs. The photographic works from Technical Support at the Annarumma gallery in Naples will be on view in the US for the first time with a mix of new and original display suggestions. Hashemi takes the traditional two-dimensional framed photograph and enhances the experience with the juxtaposition of air plants placed on top of the works, vanilla beans and cinnamon sticks dangling from suction cups off the glazing, and shirts hanging off of the lip of the frame. Hashemi’s inventive syntactical arrangements of recognizable imagery and cultural objects evoke the powerful potential of each moment in its ability to bring awareness to our perceptual bent and reconsider our own ecology as a viewer. His approach has roots in postmodern art movements from the 1970s, when artists began to explore notions around distribution and display. This reiteration repurposes his works seen in Europe to create a unique exhibition for a new audience. Hashemi’s curatorial actions suggest a world without hierarchies of subject matter and challenge traditional modes of display. Coming from a photographic background, Hashemi is interested in the role a photographer can play once images outnumber humans or trees. How does one make sense of the images they encounter? How does one begin to view images as cohabiters of the world? Hashemi makes these relationships visible through a practice that acknowledges functional or vernacular uses of the medium and focuses on the relations between images and objects.