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Saman Kalantari was born in Shiraz, Iran. He received his Bachelor of Arts at Azad
University in 1994.
Saman started working as a ceramic artist in 1992 and participated in several individual and group
exhibitions.
He left his country of birth in 2004 and since then has been living in Italy.
Saman completed a two-year course at Vetroricerca Glas & Modern in Bolzano in 2007 where he
discovered glass as a new medium. Through working with glass, he was able to express his social
experiences of life from both Iran and Europe.
Saman won the Bullseye "newcomer award
from E -merge 2008 and Gold Award in 2018 in the United States and Glass Prize 2018 in the UK. His works were published in Glasshouse, an international magazine for studio-glass (glashaus 3/2009) and
Neues Glas / New Glass, the International journal focusing on studio glass No. 3/2011 and New Glass review 41 in 2020.
Some of Saman’s selected Exhibitions are:
The second biennial of Iranian contemporary sculptures, 2000, Tehran-Iran, Museum of contemporary
arts
Solo exhibition,
2000, Tarh art gallery, Shiraz-Iran
solo exhibition,2003, Tandis art gallery, Shiraz-Iran
Group exhibition,2004,
Khaneye Honarmandan art gallery, Shiraz-Iran ( installation, mixed media)
Group exhibition,2004, Baran art gallery, Shiraz, Iran
Group exhibition(Glass),2007,Piccola galleria,Bolzano-Italy
Group Exhibition(Glass),2007, Galleria Lungomare, Bolzano- Italy
Group Exhibition(Glass),2007,Valgardena-Ortisei,Italy
Solo exhibition,(Glass),2008, Teatro Cristallo, Bolzano, Italy
Once upon a time contemporary art (single installation, mixed media
),2009, Museion (museum of
contemporary Arts of Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy
GlasHart,2009,Fortvuren,Netherlands
Glass and mixed media 2009, Galleria Civica, Bolzano-Italy
Bullseye Gallery, Portland, Oregan 2010
Notojima , Japan 2010
Red Hot show 2010, TACOMA, U.S.A
Creative glass center Alumni Biennial 2011, The gallery of fine arts, Millville, NJ, USA
Kunstart
2012, Bolzano-Italy
The art of fellowship,2013-2014, Millville, NJ, USA
Inside-out,2013,Werkbank,Lana,BZ-Italy
Awards
: 2008 newcomer award, e-merge, Bullseye Resource Center, Portland, Oregon, USA; 2010
Warm Glass Prize, Warm Glass UK, Wrington, England; 2010 Finalist, Glass Kanazawa, Japan.
Finalist 2010 e-merge, Bullseye Resource Center, Portland, Oregon. 2010, Creative Glass Center of
America fellowship, WheatonArts, Millville, NJ, USA. 2011, selected entry, Jutta Cunty-Franz
memorial award.
TAG Grant 2015 Glass art society
Gold Award e-merge 2018
Glass Prize winner 2018
I think of wastes as an artistic material, the presence of something residual, and processes of things that happened or have been. I have been trying to push the glass to its limits and making new experiments. I try to express what different materials have in common or in contrast with each other and how they react when they are back to their origin. I use glass to explain the consistency, Fragility, mortality, and subtleness of human beings, life, and nature.
