Pedram Baldari
Assistant Professor, Studio Art: Sculpture
Department of Studio Art
940-565-4405
Pedram.Baldari@unt.edu
Art Building, Room 345S
Website: Pedram Baldari Studio
About
Baldari describes himself as a Kurdish-Iranian interdisciplinary artist based in Minneapolis, Minn., and Denton, Texas. He has been featured in numerous national and international solo and group art exhibitions since 2010 such as Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2012, Documenta 13th Video Import-Export program, Video Nomad Tokyo 2015, Art Basel, Basel, Switzerland in 2014, and shown work across the U.S in museums and galleries as recent as his work at the Walker Art Museum.
He has been selected to art residencies internationally and has had group art exhibitions in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Turkey, and the U.S. He is the recipient of the 2012 Magic of Persia and Delfina Foundation Award, Jerome Fellowship Commission for Franconia Sculpture Park 2017, Vermont Studio Center Award 2015 and 2020, StarDust Fund for fellowship and art residency at Weisman Art Museum, 2021 MacDowell award and fellowship for spring and summer residency, Good Hart Fellowship and Residency 2022, Yaddo Corporation fellowship 2022. Baldari is the 2021 recipient of the National Endowment for The Arts Award by the MacDowell Foundation. His most recent solo show was “Radio-Rhizome Line 5” At Good Hart Foundation in Michigan.
In 2005, Pedram received a B.A. in architecture from the School of Art and Architecture at the University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran, and an M.F.A. in Sculpture from Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, in 2015.
Research Focus
Baldari employs a wide range of processes in his art practice as an interdisciplinary artist, such as video, performance, hybrid forms, installation, social practice, sound installation and sculpture. He is invested in creating cross-cultural investigation by stitching aesthetics, and repurposing metaphors, myths, symbols, and signs to deconstruct and decolonize the very fabric of his own practice and its visual and epistemological components. His work is an active search for different forms of facilitating, contemplating, envisioning, and imagining dialogues by transforming/repurposing/engaging different means/tools/modes of violence. The core of this exploration resides in his artistic research on the notion of state-citizenship versus land through the indigenous-native lens, modes of colonialism, displacement-immigration, and conflict.
Baldari is the 2022-2023 awardee for the Luksic Scholars Joint Research Award winner collaborating with Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and the University of Notre Dame in a multinational collaborative team to realize a project titled Diatomic Variations: The Occurrence of Sounds from the Fossilized Past. This project is focused on using abandoned oil pipelines on Indigenous Treaty Lands to create sound sculptures, generate performance art pieces and explore further artistic possibilities.
As an instructor, Baldari is focused on empowering contemporary modes of sculptural processes, performance art and collaboration. He is invested in implementing contemporary theory and thematic modality in his pedagogy, mentoring students to be successful artists utilizing his depth of knowledge in visual art, design and multidisciplinary practice. Baldari is an active mentor for students and multiple student organizations, and his enthusiasm for social practice, performative art and experimental sculpture aims to facilitate a vibrant, dynamic and energetic class environment for UNT students at different levels of their studies.
Pedram enjoys hikes and walks in state and national parks around Denton, and the lakes and is always up for some experimental music events in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
For information on his "Variations of Sounds, Traveling Between a Barrel and a Heart" project, visit the Pedram Baldari Studio.