Visual Dialogues | The Book of Kings | Shirin Neshat & Fereydoun Ave | March 2019
Secret of Words
Mehran Mohajer & Sadegh Tirafkan
November 2006
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Total Arts Gallery at the Courtyard and Massoud Nader Present exhibition of Photography by Sadegh Tirafkan with support of Silk Road Gallery this exhibition is accompanied by photographs of Mehran Mohajer Sadegh Tirafkan is a persevering artist who navigates through time and culture in search of his place and identity as an Iranian man in the contemporary world. The medium of photography has become his main platform to construct powerful visual plays, using a combination of elements that he seasons sufficiently with symbolism.
The significance of symbolism throughout Tirafkan’s body of work comes from his Persian root in which direct dialogue is rarely used, but frequently replaced by symbolic languages. How do you inform a culture that has three thousand years of history, rich in tradition and essentially a homogenous and male dominated society? Tirafkan expresses his concerns through images of numerous self-portraits and portraits of friends. He once said, "I began photography by recording what surrounded me. Now I take what is around me in the studio and make it into what I see through the prism of my life and culture." Tirafkan poses himself and others in the studio time after time to explore the meaning of being a contemporary Iranian. Blending tradition, history and memory, he recreates visually compelling scenes that build visceral connection to his ancient country. And this is where the strength and beauty of Tirafkan's work lie.
In reinventing and revisiting Iranian tradition he is also criticizing and challenging his ancestors' long-standing authority. In spite the highly eloquent appearances; I see two hidden trends in his work, which the artist has perhaps introduced even without realizing it: a theatrical staging of all the historic drama of his country, all the painful events of which he experienced intensely, and a discreet journey towards a spirituality which emanates from his whole vision. Here, Tirafkan surreptitiously rejoins the mystical quest which remains, whether we like it or not, the key-stone of any metaphysical edifice of the Iranian world. Born in Iran in 1965, Tirafkan trained as a photographer at the University of Fine Arts in Tehran. Since the late 1990’s he has participated in numerous solo exhibitions and group shows, in Tehran, Paris and New York.
Tirafkan’s work offers an eloquent meditation on modern Iranian man’s relationship to his past and on his search for a meaningful identity in the present. Identity, history and memory have been central concerns in the work of non-western artists since the era of colonialism. Tirafkan, frequently using himself as a model, revisits and reinvents these themes in his series of enigmatic yet visually compelling photographs. He uses words and symbols to communicate with the audience and
Abstract & Lanscape
Mohseni Kermanshahi
February 2005
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A. Mohseni was born in 1960, in Kermanshah west of Iran. He started painting with Master Rahim Navesi before moving to Tehran. He held his first one-man show in 1994 and has come a long way from his humble beginnings. Landscape, traditional life and nature were always his main subjects to paint and after moving to UAE he found this passion in the local scenery. T
his exhibition would be an exceptional one in Mohseni’s career since he is entering a new period after 10 years of professionally painting landscapes and still life witch is still the close to Mohseni’s heart in a different way. Mohseni has participated in more than 40 solo and group exhibitions in Iran including Tehran Contemporary Art Museum, Australia, Kuwait and the UAE. Mohseni has won a special award from Tehran Contemporary Art Museum as the best Artist of the year in 1996. Mohseni has published 2 books, which are: 1. Nature in the painting of Abdol Hossein Mohseni 2. Painting of Abdol Hossein Mohsenis He is working on two new books at present.
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Sinking Ships
Dariush Zandi
March 2012
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Waves wash over it, fogs conceal it;
On a halcyon day it is merely a monument,
In navigable weather it is always a seamark
To lay a course by: but in the sombre season
Or the sudden fury, is what it always was.
- The Dry Salvages, TS Eliot
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The dhow, once the lifeblood of the UAE, has, with the onset of today’s fast-paced way of life, diminished in importance. Today many of these majestic boats are abandoned and derelict, left prey to the elements until they fall apart. As the old generation passes away, and with it, its seafaring history, and modernity and progress take over, these great behemoths of the sea now lie at the bottom of sandy graves, covered by the rolling coastal dunes or buried beneath the shifting tides.
In Sinking Ships, artists Dariush Zandi and Shaqayeq Arabi navigate a cultural landscape in both a literal and symbolic state of decay. Photography and installation come together to create a nostalgic resurrection of the past and an exploration of notions of deterioration, fragility and vulnerability in a prism of ethical and ideological displacement.
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The fast-paced buzz of the 21st century may have little room for the slower rhythms of the past, yet here, using the ribs of a decayed dhow, a past moment is captured through an image of the present. In laying out the wooden fragments of a shipwreck, they form a blueprint of sorts, an architectural diagram, as though they were instructions on how to create a boat. In doing so, the dhow becomes a phoenix of sorts, rising from its ashes and living anew. Dramatic black and white photographs of dhows and fishing nets shot in 1983, form the backdrop to what is almost an archaeological dig – yet it is in this very excavation of a fast dying past that it is given a new lease of life. While tinged with melancholy, there is something inspiring and majestic about the silhouettes of the dhows, for here, through their presence, they live on.
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