Frieze London 2026

Parviz Tanavoli (b. 1937, Tehran, Iran) is a well-known Iranian contemporary artist whose work has gained attention beyond Sculpture – his specialized medium – across a variety of disciplines. His collection of various Iranian artifacts has influenced many of his works and those of his students and researchers. He graduated from the Brera Academy of Milan (1959). He taught sculpting at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (1960) and the Tehran College of Decorative Arts (1961-1963). He was the head of the sculpting department at the University of Tehran, a position he held for 18 years until 1979 when he retired from his teaching duties. Since 1989, he has lived and worked both in Tehran and Vancouver, Canada. His latest solo exhibition, "Oh Nightingale" (2019), was held at the West Vancouver Art Museum.

Parviz Tanavoli is considered a leading figure in "Saqakhaneh," an artistic movement to which many Iranian contemporary artists of the 1970s adhered, using artifacts, designs, and motifs of popular art forms in Iran to speak to contemporary issues. Sculptures of Tanavoli are rife with objects and forms detached from their original context and given a new sense, most famous among these his iconic "Heech" sculptures. Meaning "nothingness" in Persian, "heech" has a cosmological history whose calligraphic form takes its viewers into a meandering world of contemplation. Heech was also a commentary on the evolution of contemporary art in Iran, a response to the growing tendency of visual artists of the 70s to follow trends in Western art by borrowing from their traditions of image-making. Tanavoli's collection of Iranian artifacts is part of his artistic discourse. Through the collection, which has spanned over five decades, he has studied the ways artisans in the Iranian plateau interacted with their environment. He published many books detailing his collections and held a major exhibition at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art ("Parviz Tanavoli and the Lions of Iran," 2017) in which he placed his paintings and sculptures next to rugs, jewelry, locks, water fountains, and designs bearing the mark of a lion. As such, Tanavoli has a central place in the visual history of Iran, to which he has devoted his life and creative input.

Arghavan Khosravi (b. 1984, Iran) is a painter whose work merges Persian miniature traditions with surrealism, contemporary politics, and personal narrative. Now based in the United States, she creates layered, sculptural paintings that incorporate architectural fragments, symbolic motifs, and textile or carved elements. Her practice explores themes of exile, memory, gender, and the dualities of freedom and constraint.

Khosravi received her MFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design (2018), after completing an MFA in Illustration at the University of Tehran and a post-baccalaureate in Studio Art at Brandeis University. She has held solo exhibitions at institutions such as the Rose Art Museum, Currier Museum of Art, and Newport Art Museum, as well as at galleries including Rachel Uffner Gallery (New York), Koenig (Berlin), Kavi Gupta (Chicago), M+B (Los Angeles), and Stems Gallery (Brussels and Paris).

Her work has been included in group exhibitions at the Flag Art Foundation, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum, Xiao Museum of Contemporary Art (China), Parasol Unit (Venice), and the Orlando Museum of Art, among others. In 2019 she received a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant, and in 2023 she was Artist-in-Residence at the Rose Art Museum. Her work belongs to the collections of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; RISD Museum; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum; Rose Art Museum; Currier Museum of Art; Newport Art Museum; Albertina Museum, Vienna

Mohammad Hossein Maher (b. 1957, Abadan, Iran) is a contemporary Iranian painter and sculptor, with a degree in painting from Tehran's School of Fine Arts. He is a well-known figure and is considered one of the prominent painters in contemporary Iranian art, teaching art to students and aspiring artists for many years.

Throughout his years of activity, has consistently offered insightful perspectives on the cultural and historical experiences of society, as well as his inner world, to his audience. In his artistic journey, Mohammad Hossein Maher initially focused on southern Iran, holding exhibitions featuring local elements. Over time, his work evolved, delving into deeper cultural and mythological aspects, embracing the symbolism of myth and folkloric figures. Maher explored the themes of migration and displacement, particularly during his "Yademan" series. His "Peleh" series, on the other hand, is a more personal exploration of movement and progression, emphasizing the significance of texture and minimalism. Maher's work reflects his deep connection to cultural and historical elements, presenting a thought-provoking narrative through his art. He often places colors in small pieces on the surface, thus confronting the viewer with numerous frames in a primary composition. The predominant composition found in his works is the "cross composition." In what he has produced, both in terms of symbols and in terms of attention to qualities and concepts, the study of Manichaean and Zoroastrian art cannot be overlooked.

Maryam Hoseini (b. 1988, Tehran) is a New York-based artist.

Maryam Hoseini delves into the creation of liminal worlds that serve as poignant explorations of gender construction and the inherent violence of power dynamics. Hoseini’s paintings become a gateway to a realm where the boundaries of subjectivity are probed, revealing fragmented architectural environments as the stages for unfolding narratives.

Hoseini’s work has been exhibited at the New Museum, NY; Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Sadie Coles HQ, London; High Art, Paris; Deborah Schamoni Gallery, Munich; Green Art Gallery, Dubai ; Galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia, Italy; The Shed, NY; MoMA P.S.1, NY; amongst others.

They received a BA from Sooreh Art University in Tehran in 2012 and MFA degrees from Bard College and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016. Hoseini is currently the Co-Chair of Painting for the MFA Program at Bard College.