Exhibitions

Artists: Maryam Amini, Hell Berent, Fariba Farghadani, Shantia Zakerameli, and Masoud Mousavizade.

In 2004 China celebrated the production of the first porcelain piece about a 1000 years ago. In same year The European Ceramic Work Center (ekwc) started a series of Annual projects that focused on ceramic, and collaborated with other countries such as China, Senegal, Morocco and Brazil. Then came the turn for Iran, with it’s long standing tradition of ceramic and architecture. A group of Iranian Artists where chosen by Hella Berent, herself a visual artist and a participants of previous projects at ekwc, to participate in a 3 months residency program in Netherlands. The wonderful pieces that were created during this program are now in display at Aaran Gallery.

Curated by Arash Fayez

The word “Appropriation” in photography refers to acquiring and taking exclusive possession, and then through the artistic intervention, adapting the concept, structure, form and content of an art work to one’s own. Through this type of adaptation, the delicate distance between imitation and inspiration can be discerned. In fact, “Appropriation Photography” is the re-birth of an art-work. What is ultimately created is inevitably an art that (directly or allegorically) refers one to another art; be it literature, painting, self-portrait, or others. The present collection belongs to some young photographers who consciously, and without anguish, have borrowed and extracted from the works of others. Ultimately what seems attractive, is the attention of the new generation of Iranian photographers to a recent and contemporary subject of “Appropriation Photography” and that how in the footsteps of the great artists, if they have not portrayed more attractive works, they are nonetheless no less than the originals.
Arash Fayez

Video and installation exhibition by Filter Group

Many Iranians sculptors are still experimenting with the expansion of the forms into space, paving the way for further serious artistic achievements. Many others search for traditional motifs, or for familiar patterns of Persian calligraphy, architecture or design, linking to the past artistic heritage. Some others have surpassed the formal concerns, expressing socio-political statements or displaying levels of self-disclosure, especially by incorporating their typically used everyday objects. A number of the sculptors have used text and language as a means of artistic expression, and yet others have gone further into interpretable combinations of text and objects.

Solo show by Siamak Filizadeh

Thus spoke the sheep: “Oh, the King of fairies, we wish that you see us when we are captives in the hands of these beings. The lambs and the children are separated from mothers, and their mothers’ milk is wrested for human beings’ own children. Our children are tied up, are slaughtered, and skinned. They scream, in hunger and in thirst, and no-one comes to their rescue. And then, their heads are chopped, their stomachs cut, and they are skinned. Their heads and organs, their hearts, livers and rumen are subjected to the butchers’ chopping knives. And finally, they are cooked in pots, or barbecued on fire, and then eaten. And we are still silent. Neither we cry nor do we complain. Even if we cry, these beings do not show mercy. Where is the supposed kindness and compassion of these beings?”
Ikhwan al-Safa – 961-986 AD Part of “Plea Signature Scroll by the animals against the cruelty of human beings to the “King of Fairies”

Solo show by Arash Hanaei

Arash Hanaei, was born in Tehran in 1978. He prefers to concentrate on documentary photography. His present series continues to simply “Document”, this time A “Capital”. He shows us our own city, albeit noise and pollution and congestion. Colors are eliminated. Except the pale green – grayish color that is associated with many of Islam Republic’s institutions and the red of Iranian Flag at Martyrs Tombs of Tehran. At first glance his work appears to be snap shots of Tehran, but at closer Look his sarcasm becomes apparent. Images of Shopping Malls & Bill Boards advertising Western commodities in opposition to the Revolutionary Murals of Tehran. The sense of isolation is deep. And one wonders whether he has tried to create his own city away from hustle and bustle of every day life? A “Capital” that we all like to love and hate at the same time.

Solo show by Mostafa Darebaghi

A Retrospect Animals, dots, cubes, are all set in a unique abstract world. The two dimensional forms drag our eyes and at any moment you expect to come across the three dimensional form. The steady rhythm and easiness of the paintings and the tranquility, are easily detected in each piece. At the same time the dynamism is an integral part of his paintings. He has pursued and succeeded in creating his own imagery without insisting on traditional motifs. A master in command of his own world, a complicated world that is made easy for the viewer to appreciate and feel. Colors are refined and despite their brightness are extremely gentle. The world of Darehbaghi is humane and kind. Perhaps if we listen we might hear the humming of birds and cock-a-doodle-doo.

Curated by Mario Iannelli

The exhibition “Far From Where We Came” brings together the energy and the skills of eleven artists of different generations, all based in Italy. Each artist develops an aspect of the subject through his original linguistic syntax and different media, including video, painting, sculpture, installation, ready-mades and performance. “Far From Where We Came” talks of a contemporary reciprocal gaze in which past and future join in an irreducible relationship. The following paradox has its roots in ancient traditions as well as the contemporary art scene. Ancient poetry, Greek tragedy, and Roman tradition gave us, to mention some examples, the figures of Orpheum, Gilgamesh and Janus, characters relating in certain aspects to artistic practice. The question we are able to answer today (no matter how far we have gone in terms of science and technology) is strategically connected with answering “where we have come from”. Gods and Demigods Double-headed Janus presided over all material and immaterial beginnings: from thresholds and arches to the beginning of the historical and mythical time and of every new enterprise, war or peace. Janus represented all forms of passage and change. Gilgamesh, two-thirds god and one-third human, sets out in a quest for immortality and, when heartbroken by the death of his friend Enkidu, continues his quest with nobility and courage in the territory of Utnapistim, called “the Far”. Orpheum, son of Apollo, endowed with intuitive knowledge of degeneration and regeneration cycle of the natural world, was placated, affected and persuaded with his chant, Charon, Cerberus and Kore, because of his love for Eurydice. Yet when he reached the end of Hades, doubting she was there, turned his back and saw her disappearing and lost her forever. We read in Gilgamesh, “Before you leave the desert lands Gilgamesh will know your arrival in his dreams.” Gilgamesh learnt about his odyssey and destiny through his dreams and wondered what that clear and distorted reality meant. Gilgamesh, like Orpheum and Janus, represents the prototype of an artist exploring the territories of the unconscious, a hero in search of an unattainable goal, the form, the horizon, something always more difficult to realize, an impossible journey to outer limits of the world. Going far, the supreme will of distancing oneself “from where we came” is the ethical principle of a hero stealing the fire from gods: it is the principle of individuality. Comprehending “where we came” pertains to a metaphysical dimension, a fixed and unchangeable ineffable reality one can only cognize but never live totally: you can only perceive the distance, the duration. The paradox is this: when we go “far” we distance ourselves “from where we came” and so the direction, the sense or distance is established by the second term. Getting far can lead to a blind alley, a labyrinth becoming more and more complicated. The aesthetic experience develops against the skills of going far and returning back again. Some decisive shifts can gather the sense of progressive change of time in space, as in thought and in imagination. “Far From Where We Came” is a paradox because the more we go “further” the more we understand that in fact we are approaching, in a way never equal to the former. The same case applies to aesthetic experience: we practice the cyclic and ritual contemplation of both aspects. Founding its proper cognitive analysis on experience and not an objectivity, aesthetics—as matter of interpretation of Beauty—actually supplies us with just one aspect, a splinter and not a totality. The aesthetic gaze looks into the distance, somewhere between the “far” and ‘from where we came’ to see its form. In creation, as in art, the void does not exist. The void itself is a form. The not-being is non-existent. The void, as total absence of form, does not exist. Aesthetic experience leads not to the void; the aesthetic experience is not empty. It is a ritual, a sort of contemplation, a cyclic return. The experience of going far and the experience of Beauty are transformed and introduced into our real conditions. Gilgamesh wanted to become god-like, but he was a man. Orpheum was obliged not to turn back. Janus received from Saturn the gift of being able to see both future and the past. The greatest form of going far is the dream; the perfect form is to forget; but if I forget, I fall in a different and bigger paradox. If I forget, thinking will no longer make any sense; it will not make any sense if I have really gone far. What would have happened if Gilgamesh had forgotten everything while going far? What chant is Orpheum playing? What are the faces of Janus seeing? In Vettor Pisani’s drawings—obsessively representing a human profile and an island— the form evolving on the horizon is the image of the infinite. “Miaosfinge”, a pyramid of three cans, plays upon quotations and the language similar to the ‘Rabbit and the Philosopher’s Stone’. Flavio De Marco’s “Landscapes” represent a fractal horizon, a unit in the structure of the gaze, able to reproduce all equal landscapes. Mario Sasso’s triptych turns over the gaze to the top to find a new space for imagination, disappearing and emerging again in the contamination of the urban space. Piero Mottola’s “Articolazioni cromatico-emozionali vicino-lontano” is produced by a neutral and minimal impulse looking for maximum stimulation of perceptive events in a visual structure. Matteo Peretti’s “Portraits” (“George”, “Barack”) and ‘Shopping’, an assemblage of plastic shoppers, evoke a second look, creating new skins on known surfaces. Daniele Jost’s ‘Babels’ evoke a shift in a different context, different from the original, close as well as remote, mythical and technologic. Carlo Gabriele Tribbioli’s “Paeasaggi Scheletrici” marks mental maps in the margin of objects re-emerging as abstract signs. Mastequoia’s “Strade antiche certe and idem p.” presents the documentation of an activity reconstructed by group during the exploration of an itinerary of an ancient Roman connecting road, bringing back drawings, documents, notes, photos, archeological and industrial finds. Navid Azimi’s installation of a “Five-Pointed Star” is a metaphor of intertwining of order and disorder, life and death. The two works on paper in the series “Rokh” and ‘Cypress with Skull and Apples’ manifest the most principal aspects of his figurative world. In Giulio Squillacciotti’s “farfromwherewecame” (digital film 8”) (which gave its title to the exhibition) a narration is built upon imaginary facts starting from those photos and cards which complete, at the same time, the original work. On the contrary, in Carlo Spano’s “Frazioni Dinamiche” (digital film 58”), passages of real life, without a logical sequence or a will to narrate (only accelerated or slowed down), reproduce the simulation of a cinematographic kind of quality of image and duration.

Artists: Vettor Pisani, Carlo Gabriele Tribbioli, Giulio Squillacciotti, Matteo Peretti, Piero Mottola, Flavio De Marco, Daniele Jost, Navid Azimi Sadjadi, and Mario Sasso

Solo show by Ala Dehghan

Almost all contemporary Iranian art is about frustration and finding an Oblique language to scream in. Ala Dehghan is no exception. Her work comes on small scaled paper with the tools that a child uses to express itself: Cayons – pastels – pencils And gauche. What seems like an arbitrary scattering of semi figurative shapes trying to escape from emptiness. They are puppets on string or butterflies pinned, slithering on to paper. The feeling of helpless entrapment is overwhelming, delicate but final. No way out, not even in to emptiness.
Fereydon Ave

Artists: Pegah Alagheband, Narges Banan, Amirali Bashiri, Majid Biglari, Neda Hadizadeh, Behzad Hatefinejad, Mehdi Hossein Eshlaghi, Reza Hossein Eshlaghi, Sam Jaber Ansari, Hooman Mehdizadeh, Saeed Mohammadzadeh Nodehi, Nasim Pirhadi, Mehran Saber, Ali Shafiabadi, and Zahra Nabavi

Curated by Neda Razavipoor and Vahid Sharifian

The exhibition “Iran on Paper: Last Ten Years” is the first in a series of traveling exhibitions from my large collection of works on paper by Iranian artists of all ages. Each “part” (exhibition) will be curated by different curators. My hope is that in time the whole of the collection will be exhibited and will be seen by a wide audience from many parts of the globe and the catalog collectively will make a worth – while statement and document of work on paper by Iranian artists all the way back to the 1960’s.
Fereydon Ave

Solo show by Arash Sedaghat Kish

In a historical context, the watercolorist was bound by conventions of scale, intensity of color or background. To question these traditional views of watercolour the artists chooses to paint on a large scale, without backgrounds, meantime utilising the same techniques employed in smaller watercolours. These watercolours depict Iranian students as they appear in everyday life, how they dress and present themselves. There are certain dress codes and laws in Iran that restrict what can be worn. In a county where everything has political or religious significance, dress becomes an emotive form of self expression that needs to be controlled.

The tyrant dies and his rule ends, the martyr dies and his rule begins.” — Soren Kierkegard
The battle of good versus the evil is an age old phenomenon. Every religion has some story or other to show us the ‘right’ path from the ‘wrong’ one. Hinduism celebrates the victory of Lord Krishna over the demon Narakasura as Diwali. Christians remember the crucification of Jesus Christ as a supreme sacrifice in the way of God, and so do Muslims commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Husain, the grandson of the Prophet. There is of course the physical suffering in martyrdom, and all sorrow and suffering claim our sympathy, the purest, most out-flowing sympathy that we can give. But there is a greater suffering than physical suffering. That is when a valiant soul seems to stand against the world; when the noblest motives are reviled and mocked; when truth seems to suffer an eclipse. It may even seem that the martyr has but to say a word of compliance, do a little deed of non-resistance; and much sorrow and suffering would be saved; and the insidious whisper comes: “Truth after all should never die.” The thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die.”
Soren Kierkegard

And after Ahriman (The Primordial Devil) fell insensible, AhuraMazda began the creation of the Cosmos. From the boundless time, he created the bounded time, and so began the creation of other cosmic phenomena. In one year, and in six sessions, the six archetypes of the six main phenomena of creation were completed, which are the Sky, the Water, the Earth, the Greens, the Creatures, and the Primordial Man…. The archetype of the useful quadruped beasts is the Evadad or Evakdad Cow (The Godiva – God’ gift) which was created on the right shores of the VahDeity (Beh Deity or the Good Deity) river, in the land of Iran. Evadad Cow is as white and bright as The Moon, whose height reaches three nays (feet) AhuraMazda created the Evadad Cow also to assist the Greens and the Water.

Solo show by Siamak Filizadeh

Goethe has said “Blessed is the nation that does not need heroes”. Dictatorships are the most fertile fields for the creation of heroes and have devised the most compelling reasons for hero worship. Who do we put on a pedestal? Who reflects the very best of human nature? What do we do with a hero who has done something less heroic? Is a hero a hero twenty four hours a day? Is he a hero when he orders food at restaurants? Bible says “There are just men for life and there are also just men for an hour”! What about Greek Heroism which happens at battle grounds? Can heroes simply be those people who inspire us to become better than we are? Perhaps someone who dares to speak the truth to power ought to be modern day hero. A story is told of a righteous man who went to city of Sodom to preach against lies, thievery, and indifference. No one listened. When asked why he continues to preach, he said “I must keep speaking out. I thought I had to shout to change them. Now I know I must shout so that they can not change me.”
Text adapted from Hero’s Hero: The Concept of Heroes by Elie Wiesel, Nobel peace laureate

Solo show by Sasan Ghar E Dagloo

The magic of stories of 1001 nights are brought to life in wonderful compositions and opulent colors of Sasan Ghar E Dagloo. Layers upon layers of sensual lines and colors are echoes of Scheherazade’s stories , the life in Harems, the deeds of the nobles, the fantasies and the realities. The passions, the joys, and the agonies are all depicted, and subtly relayed to the viewers through the incredible choice of colors and magical shapes. Looking deeper, we find that the artist perceives the world in greater depths and breadths than we at first thought. Sasan Ghar E Dagloo, certainly belongs to the sophisticated group of painters, who carry on the mandate of great masters of the past centuries.

Solo show by Goli Khalatbary

Goli Khalatbary has been a professional photographer for more than 30 years. From photography, she has retained images that are molded into silver forms – silver, as it is believed to be a feminine element and is the light-sensitive component of any film. Reality has not been her quest. She insists on freedom to shape forms and catches the rays of light that illuminate her work. She chooses to call this exhibition, Three Years of Silence, but the richness of the collection shows that, despite all that has come to happen in the past 3 years, her vivid imagination has managed to shine through. Or maybe, as she says in her poetry: “and what you understand best cannot be said.”

Show by Azin Agha Rabiee and Maneli Aygani

For Francisco de Goya, fantasy and invention formed the very foundation of art. The fantastic art has existed as a genuine component of all art in every age and place. By developing their own form and content Azin Agha Rabiee and Maneli Aygani have created their own fantastic image of the world. Memories are revisited and dreams are interpreted. Proving Ronald Goetze’s statement that: “Nothing is so fantastically over whelming as the authentic, Nothing as incredible as real reality”.