Drawing as an Urgency

Armineh Negahdari was born in Tehran in 1994. She lives in Bordeaux. Between these two cities, there is more than just geographical distance.

“My work is shaped by my reality as a woman and as an Iranian,” she says. In her drawings, human figures are present, yet never fully captured. Unstable, sometimes disjointed, they occupy only a tiny portion of the page, leaving the rest in a void of tension. A graduate of the University of Tehran and then the Clermont-Ferrand School of Art, Negahdari works with the urgency of a flow, letting her hand precede the idea.

Charcoal, oil pastel, graphite, oil paint – the materials and their support record the energy of the gesture as much as the image itself. The human figure bears witness without narrating. Ambiguous, without narrative resolution, it oscillates between light and shadow. The forms are fluid, permeable: a head becomes a fig, a mountain transforms into a breast, hands become wings and then flowers. “Words alter images,” she says. Her drawings resist paraphrase. What surfaces—desire, vulnerability, resistance—is perceived before it is named.

The Louis Vuitton Foundation is offering her, as part of its Open Space program, her first solo exhibition in a French institution. In an art landscape often dominated by installation and video, Armineh Negahdari reminds us with quiet conviction that drawing can, in itself, be a form of contemporary urgency.

LOUIS VUITTON FOUNDATION
Until August 30, 2026
8 av. Mahatma Gandhi, 75116
Metro Les Sablons (Line 1)
Mon., Wed., and Thu. 11am-8pm, Fri. 10am-9pm, Sat.am and Sun. 10am-8pm
Closed on Tue.
Price: €18 - Reduced price: €5-10 - Free for children under 3