Rhapsodies, a solo exhibition of a new body of work by Mahmoud Hamadani will open at MSFA on February 13h, 2009, and remain on view until March 14th. As a continuation of two ongoing drawing projects—Endless Roads and Odes, Hamadani once again constructs alluring bodies of work tinted by gloom: his drawings (always black ink on white paper) are nostalgic, impressionistically autobiographical, and melancholic.

In Odes, Hamadani works with absolute control and precise calculation. The almost perfect lines, shades that emerge through concentration, positioned sequentially compose sophisticated stanzas of an unending poem. Each of Hamadani’s Odes are verses in a continuing rhythmic elegy.

The works in the series Endless Roads share with Odes a sense of open-endedness, a journey rather than a destination. For these drawings, the artist surrenders personal control to the forces of chance and gravity. As they form, the lines of ink travel across papers’ surface in a kind of Brownian motion. Hamadani’s intervention is as an editor, more than a producer, selecting only drawings he deems successful.

Especially for this exhibition, Hamadani experiments with translating a work from Endless Roads into a monumental wall drawing. Additionally, Hamadani’s 2001 Ode to NY, a seemingly haphazard cascade of perfectly crafted cubes, will be installed in the gallery’s project room.

Rhapsodies is Hamadani’s third exhibition curated by Michael Steinberg.

Mahmoud Hamadani was born in Iran. He has exhibited at the British Museum, New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, New York University and galleries in New York and London. He is a recipient of Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant.

Hamadani earned a BA in Mathematics from State university of New York and a Masters degree in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

He lives and works in New York City.