Tiger Strikes Asteroid New York is pleased to present By the Mouth of a Wadi, a solo exhibition of work by our 2021 Open Call recipient Sholeh Asgary. In “Qanat,” a large interactive sound and light installation named after the ancient Iranian underground water channel system, Asgary amplifies the resonant qualities of a traditional rug with the sound of water, as a pendulum microphone hung above picks up the amplified sounds of the rug, movements, and room tone, creating a live feedback loop. Visitors are invited to sit, lay or stand on the rug, affecting the transmission of sound throughout the gallery. Appearing to undulate and move, the illuminated central motif of the rug traditionally signifies a fountain, and its elongated cast shadow inverts the mythical “Peacock’s Tail” from Islamic dome architecture. The exhibition also includes a series of embossed prints that are topographical mappings created by Asgary’s breath, and a video work that references water, transmission, and incommunicability. Enveloping the viewer in a womb like sound and space, By the Mouth of a Wadi  reminds us that we are all born into the comforting darkness of sound and water.

Sholeh Asgary is an Iranian-born interdisciplinary sound artist whose works implicate the viewer-participant into future mythological excavations, bridging large swathes of time and history, through water, water clocks, crude oil, movement, light, imaging, voice, and sound.  

Asgary’s work has received support from numerous programs, including a 2022 SECA nominee from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, a 2020/2021 California Arts Council Artists in Communities Grant for her audience participatory program Majles, a 2019 Kenneth Rainin Foundation New Project Grant through Dance Elixir, and a 2014 Alternative Exposure Grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation for her curatorial initiatives as Curator and Director of Education and Public Programs at Incline Gallery, where she also founded The Project Room. An affiliate artist-in-residence at Headlands Center for the Arts, she is also a 2021 artist-in-residence at MASS MoCA, UCLA Art Sci, ARoS Kunstmuseum, Real Time & Space, and Temescal Arts Center. Recent exhibitions, performances, and screenings include Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Minnesota Street Project, Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, Charlotte Street Foundation, Ann Arbor Film Festival, ARoS Kunstmuseum, and Flux Factory. Asgary is also involved with several ongoing collaborative projects, including those with Abou Farman, Julie Ezelle Patton, Dena A. Al-Adeeb, and Heather Kapplow, as well as serves on the Curatorial Council for Southern Exposure. Currently based in Oakland, CA, where she is a Lecturer in the Department of Art Practice at UC Berkeley, Asgary holds an MFA from Mills College and a BA from San Francisco State University.  

By the Mouth of a Wadi is funded in part by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant