Nairy Baghramian's exhibition "nameless" at Wiels in Brussels engages in a sculptural dialogue with the Polish avant-garde artist Katarzyna Kobro, whose work was largely destroyed during and after World War II. Baghramian riffs on Kobro's forms with unpainted steel variations that double as plinths for her own works, while also referencing other displaced sculptors such as Isamu Noguchi, Louise Bourgeois, and Jean Arp. The show deliberately leaves works untitled and undated, inviting viewers to discover art-historical references while enjoying the material playfulness of the sculptures.
This exhibition matters because it reframes the history of sculpture through the lens of displacement and precarity, arguing that the impulse to create lasting material forms may be heightened, not hindered, by instability. By connecting Kobro's lost oeuvre to contemporary practice and highlighting the statelessness of canonical figures like Arp and Noguchi, Baghramian challenges conventional narratives of modernism and asks viewers to reconsider how biography, migration, and survival shape artistic legacy.