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Raoof Dashti

Solo exhibition of Raoof Dashti

Opening on 1st January 2021
On view until 18th January 2021

In his book, The Great Good Place, Ray Oldenburg, argues that in modern suburban societies, time is primarily spent in three realms; first (home), second (workplace), and third inclusively sociable places, and he suggests that the balance between these three spaces can shape a healthy existence.
The accentuated contrast between these spaces in our lives in Iran, particularly concerning identity- besides the general sense of alienation from public spaces- has given more importance to private spaces, particularly in our homes. Many lived experiences supposed to happen in public places are brought into the houses, and public and private life are intertwined. The home, which identifies as a private space for tranquility and rest, has been turned into a hybrid mixture of home-restaurant, home-cinema, home-office, home-studio, etc. Home is everywhere. It is both living spaces as well as a workplace. A place for recreational activities as well as social deliberations.
Dis-Orientation is an interpretation of my personal and public life in Tehran today. I frequently face new conditions and circumstances in a city in its streets and alleys. My home keeps changing, too, a change I bring in from the outside. Unsustainability and constant change in spaces change my home’s identity according to everyday lived experience. A four-walled place that is an agglomeration of different living domains.
All these photographs were taken in my home. In these 35 frames, I aim to show my different facades and the shapelessness of my home. My home is not recognizable; Where is this place? A bright home with shining lights? Or a damp, fogbound cubicle?
Raoof Dashti

Solo exhibition of Raoof Dashti

Opening on 5th October 2017
On view until 22nd October 2017

In “Recliners” I search for absenteeism and loss; a process of research, fabrication and creation. The experience of fantasizing in solitude was the igniting point for this series of work. Contemplation and visualization based on the traces that informed me of “an event that had occurred in the past”. Graffitis, sheets and fabrics that were signifying a connection between the triangle of love, body and beauty.
It was very much like my experiences at the time when I was studying painting. When confronted with art books instead of seeing I was forced to fantasize. To imagine nudes that were horridly covered and could not be seen. A reminder of beautiful women and men that I imagined and the gratifying and rapturous magic that would engulf me. But this was only a defensive mechanism, because it would change my perception of the image.
The main question is: once nudes that are painted to be seen, are altered, what will be the point of our “gaze”?
In this series by fictitious rendering of the factual, I invite you to speculate on reality. Imagining reclining nudes in the middle of out of the way and abandoned spaces and pristine forests of Iran, where there are traces of humans, and there is not. At the same time, they are and are not human images.
Raoof Dashti