Abu Dhabi Art 2010
Silk Road Gallery presents
Contemporary Iranian Photography & Young Iranian Artists
Cover: Mehrdad Naraghi
Digital print on Photo Paper
2009
50 x75 cm
Abu Dhabi Art 2010
The Silk Road Gallery was established in Tehran in December 2001 to bring together and promote the works of the increasing number of Photographers who have been emerging in Iran over the past decade. Photography in Iran has exploded into a real and growing movement exploring all aspects of life in these extraordinary times. The artistic talent of these young people is generating a unique record of life here and has attracted great attention internationally. Since 2007, the Gallery has opened its doors to other fields of art, and sculptors, painters, video artists and others have found a new space to express themselves. The Gallery is present at several major contemporary art fairs including Paris Photo, Abu Dhabi art, Art Dubai, and exhibitions in order to promote the work of established, internationally renowned photographers. The Silk Road Gallery dedicates itself to supporting a selection of young and talented emerging Iranian artists.
Hawar Amini
Silk Road Gallery Mixed Media On paper
2010
93 x 123.5 cm
My task is to remind of the past. The past I am talking about is not that far from us. It’s the past of the people who share the same blood and belong to the same land. I am the son of the war, the blood, the dance, the pride, the frustration and I want to be the chronicler of all these. Hawar Amini
Mixed Media On paper
2010
93 x 123.5 cm
Mixed media on canvas
Hawar Amini Hawar Amini was born in 1981 in Marivan, Kordestan, in Iran. He graduated in painting from Isfahan Art University and he got his MA in painting from Tarbiat Modares University of Tehran. He had several exhibitions in Iran and abroad including his participation to Art Dubai 2009 with Silk Road Gallery.
2009
100 x 150 cm
Mixed Media on paper
2010
93 x 123.5 cm
Ali Ettehad
Silk Road Gallery Digital print on textile
2010
130 x 158 cm
Purdahs of silence II “Whence doeth the good commence? Where lays the border separating the observer I and the subject of Evil? Till when will thine celestial headsprings seethe? Wherefore is my wickedness eternal? Who made thy purdahs? Who was the one who made my image? Up to where will my steps, bare or with leggings, come towards thee and up to where back towards me?” “pardeh” refers to different meanings in Farsi; it could be interpreted as pardehs of an instrument: here “pardeh” means fret; it also means: curtain, hijab and tableau. That’s why I chose the word Purdah, because of its origin in Sanskrit literature; and that there is a similar word in English: “Pardaa” which has the same roots. “Purdahs of silence” was an installation accompanying a long time performance. By entering the gallery; audience would encounter a covered space in white and a couple of tableaus hanging on the wall. Both tableaus were the artist’s self-portraits and some parts of Sohrevardi’s dissertation about existence were printed on the margins. One of them was named “Anghia” and the other “Ashghia” which are the pretexts of holiness and evil. The artist has put himself in both these opposite situations and there were proportionate embroideries on these images chests. In the main spot of the gallery and between four columns covered with white sheet except the front face, and on the ground which was covered by sands; seated the artist all concealed in the same white fabric as the columns and in front of him was a book-rack with an empty book and a Tanboor (a music instrument) with no strings. A hand shows up for a minute and pages through the book; or plays the silent instrument; then leave it on the sounds; creeps behind the covers and struggles again to escape from that white cocoon. This performance was held for six days and every day for four hours. The sixth day which is the last one sheds the blood from inside; the blood that was supposed to penetrate the fabric completely but failed to do so.
Digital print on textile and embroideries
2010
*** After the performance has come to an end which was coherent to socialpolitical condition of Iran then; these tableaus have transformed into an ongoing project. Altogether they tell a story which is just like everyday life in Iran. All these Purdahs are artist’s self portraits. Each tableaus benefit from visual techniques of ancient Persian illustration. And almost all of them refer to classic Persian literature. Each text is connected to a contemporary event of Iran’s history.
120 x 152 cm
Ali Ettehad Ali Ettehad was born in 1983, Sari. He studied Cinema at Art University of Tehran (2001-2006), Iran; and then the middle Persian Language (Pahlavi Language), literature department of Tehran University and “Neyshabur” Persian study foundation (20042006). He works as an artist, art critic and art curator. His art works are based on Persian mystic tradition and sophism. He works with different media such as video, installation, photo-based pictures, performance and sound.
How Confidence is important? Using elements taken from a range of items, widened through persian ancient culture, classics and recent events, Etehad’s art works are choosing their audience by the use of their regional tone. The journey that earlier began with more globally-understandable meanings (Confidence: The series) has now turned into a series of “confidential” texts. In which empty place are you standing combines the fundamental psychosis and interlaces of Iranian torn and ripped identity through the past two thousand and seven hundred years of entanglement. This latter invites a regional audience to a close chat about their lost roots. Kiarash Alimi
Heart looks like five Underlying the happy and sarcastic atmosphere of Amir Farhad’s works is a hidden barbaric brutality. He sings some erotic-love poems shamelessly to fight against every honorable thing. These kitsch characteristics and anarchic attitudes make his painting and drawings differ from decorative and romantic style of Middle Eastern art. His work is a rare sample of contradiction between the ugly and the beautiful Middle East. Informers, lovers, aristocrats, prostitutes and cops are coexisted in his world just like the Middle East he knew when he was a boy.
Amir Farhad Silk Road Gallery
Acrylic on canvas
2010
100 x 150 cm
The protagonists of his grotesque-comic stories are lecherous men and indecent women who don’t have any positive sociological back ground. He finds them in pop posters, b movies, secret knowledge and magical numbers at the same time. ¬ In his wonderland even a simple joke can cost a life. He lives in a place that heart and five’s glyph (5) are look like each other.
Amir Farhad was born in Tehran in 1977. He works and lives in Tehran. He had several solo and group exhibitions in Tehran and other cities in Iran from 2005 to 2010 including a group exhibition in Silk Road Gallery in 2009.
Shadi Ghadirian Silk Road Gallery
C print
2008
83 x 83 cm
C print
Shadi Ghadirian is by far one of the most famous women Iranian photographers. Her work has always been about woman and their place in the modern Iranian society. Her new work shows change in pace. We are back to a photography that exhibits its own master of technique, the perfect capture of still life photos that treat of war but in a very domestic context. Iran is a country that went through hardship and wars such as war with Iraq for eight years and now all neighbouring countries are at war like Afghanistan and Pakistan. These conflicts have all become inherent to our daily lives and they touch us all. Shadi Ghadirian tells us of the impact of war on us, on our daily lives, on our homes. But it is also a conflict of interest, the hardships of family life and the innuendos of the Iranian society how men and women are in an ongoing war. How ordinary life is made of weapons infiltrating our most mundane belonging.
2008
83 x 120 cm
Shadi Ghadirian Shadi Ghadirian was born in 1974 in Tehran where she lives and works. She studied at Azad Iranian university of Tehran where she got a B.A in photography. She has had several exhibitions from 1999 in Iran and abroad among which Regards Persans at Espace Electra in Paris in 2001 - San Jose Museum of Art, New York in 2004 – The House of World Cultures, Berlin in 2004 – Photo Biennale of Moscow in 2004, Western looked by Eastern, CCCB, Barcelona, Word into Art : Artists of the Modern Middle East, The British Museum, London, Noorderlicht photofestival, Netherlands in 2007, Los Angeles County Muesum of Art, California in 2008, Word Into Art, DIFC, Dubai in 2008. With Silk Road Gallery from 2004 to 2010 she was present in the major art fairs in Paris, San Sebastian, London, Madrid, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Her works are in the private and public collections – Mumok in Vienna, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, The British Museum in London, Musée d’art et d’archéologie de la ville d’Aurillac.
170 x 140 cm Oil on canvas
AmirPasha Hoshivar Silk Road Gallery
Ink on paper
In my paintings some family pictures and some photos of my personal album have always inspired me while there is a difference between them. The acquaintance I had with the close relatives of mine in my prior collection is changed to unacquainted soldiers who were the relatives or some friends of my grandfather who himself was in the military. In fact, the concept of the works is less nostalgic or memorable for me- except for the uniforms of the military people, which can easily remind everyone of the World War II. The picture of most of these people, have been in our family album for over 80 years and I know none of them. The people who have left their pictures as a memorial or as a sign of their flattery! The frightening and ambiguous presence of these strangers’ gathering is a creation of my imagination. This imagination can easily make a poetic relation between the elegance of a woman and the affection and the strictness of a military man without having sexual prejudice. It is just a very concise and beautiful Haiku of human relations. It also can picture the melancholy of a child who is in a forest cursing the uniform and eternal dictatorial gesture of his father. Lots of these images on my mind are scattered, paradoxical and filled with human and nonhuman concepts, tangible or intangible. They are not verbal and by no means measurable.
AmirPasha Hoshivar Amirpasha Hoshivar was born in 1988, he is graduated from Malek-e-Ashtar art school in Tehran in 2004. He had one solo and 3 group exhibitions in Hour Gallery in Tehran from 2007 to 2010. He participated in the 7th painting festival of Saba cultural and artistic institute in Tehran 2007.
2010
44 x 51 cm
Bahman Jalali Silk Road Gallery
C Print
110 x 110 cm
Image of Imaginations
C Print
Over the years of teaching photography at the university and in my numerous journeys around Iran, I have been exposed to many images by little known photographers around the country. Those that I could keep, I have held as mementos, and others have left their marks on my imagination. Subsequent attempts at realizing them—with my imagination working as filter—first took me to newer technologies. But computers couldn’t do justice to these images—I wanted their unalloyed presence. I began experimenting with the offset print technique. Under big machines, I combined different images: kings, eunuchs, women, people, places, houses and odd things. Then, I went to the darkroom. On the sensitive surface of common photographic paper these images gave way to a new world, one only found in the imagination. In the space between the Tangible and the Virtual, with Time appearing in drags, a world has come to existence which brings these two realities ever closer. Bahman Jalali
98 x 98 cm
Photo paper under mirror
100 x 100 cm
Bahman Jalali Bahman Jalali was born in 1944 in Tehran where he lives and works. He graduated in economics but very quickly dragged by his passion he joins in 1974 the Royal Society of Photographers in England and dedicates his life to photography. He is a self taught photographer and has been teaching photography at different Iranian universities for more than 25 years.He was a member of the founding group, a consultant to the board of trustees and curator of old photos for Akskhaneh Shahr, the first Museum of photography created in Iran in 1997. He has had many exhibitions in Iran and abroad. Since the creation of Silk Road Gallery, Bahman Jalali has always been present in important events of the gallery in Iran and in international scenes. He was given a very special homage for his forty years of career in photography by the Fundacio Antoni Tapies in Barcelona with a special solo exhibition curated by Catherine David from September to December 2007 and with the publication of a book. He contributed to the prestigious exhibition in the British Museum of London, Word into Art : Artists of the Modern Middle East in 2006.
Digital print on Photo Paper
Mehrdad Naraghi Silk Road Gallery
2009
50 x75 cm
Digital print on Photo Paper
2009
50 x75 cm
The House The sense of emptiness of a house whose occupants have departed is somehow striking for me. There is a profound feeling -somewhat- strange about the abandoned houses. Most of the time there is a sad story behind it; forced immigration, need for money, grown children who have left or even death. We can feel it through the remains which occupy a place here and there. The things that have been forgotten or ignored to be taken along seem useless now. In addition there are objects with memories which were left intentionally untouched so as to be forgotten or maybe left to be part of a history. Time plays the main role for this abandonment. The pictures of large gatherings, child’s birthdays, wedding parties and ... are covered with dust and left on the drawer. Yes these are all reminders that time is passing. Live memories of moments have continued their life and have led us to an essential question. Which one is more real, a person who was sitting on the arm chair and has been recorded in my mind or the empty chair? It’s left for me to believe that its typical characteristic of human existence which we can feel, hear and smell even in absence. Mehrdad Naraghi
Mehrdad Naraghi Mehrdad Naraghi was born in 1978. He lives and works in Tehran-Iran. He has had several exhibitions in Iran and abroad among which Seyhoon Gallery (2002 and 2004), Majdanek, VII International Art Triennal, Lublin, Poland (2004) , The 9th and the 11th Tehran Photo Biennal, Khiyal Art Gallery (2004 and 2008), Silk Road Gallery (2005, 2007 and 2009), PhotoQuai, The Biennial of the Images of the World, MusĂŠe du Quai Branly, Paris (2007), 165 years of Iranian Photography, MusĂŠe du Quai Branly, Paris(2009) and The Empty Quarter Gallery, Dubai, (2010). He won the 3rd prize of Young Artist Competition in London ( 2009)
Oil on canvas
Morteza Pourhosseini
Silk Road Gallery
2010
200 x 140 cm
Convenient death Human and his limitations has always been my preferable subject, and I have been in constant struggle with myself to deal with it. This series is -in a way- the continuation of my previous series with the subject of human and his personal identity. In four of the works presented in this series, we encounter a nude masculine figure. This nudity refers to being human, to withstanding the restrictions without a shield. Composition-wise, there has been a ceaseless effort for the works to reflect the contemporary human condemned against external restrictions and pressures of the world surrounding him. In one piece, this persona is limited from both sides: from the lower side by the frame, and from the upper side by spearheads pointed at him, leaving him no chance to object. In another artwork, his hands are tied behind his back, with nothing on his chest but a buckle from an armor. Another work of this series, demonstrates the very same persona, surrounded by swords and sheaths from all sides. In summary, in each and every piece, illustrating an obligatory life is what the artist is after. Works are often influenced by a poem or a play. In the artwork titled “Women accompanied by three dogs� (dogs acting as her guards), I have hanged swords from the wall behind her, displaying the presence of a man only through his shadow. The woman looks towards outside of the frame, letting the audience know that the real story is going on outside the frame. The woman has neither any guardians, nor anyone to protect her, except her Chador. The swords are solely ornamental, and are not functional. I have represented this thought in another piece. A woman holds in her hands a helmet left behind by a man. A man who has perished outside the frame. Behind her, sit personas dressed in cleric gowns, as if they are judges, unable to do anything, folding their hands as the result. Yet in another artwork, one can see a man from behind, symbolizing his surrender. This man has once been a saint with a halo around his head, but here this halo turns into a shield causing him nothing but toil. Although he holds an axe in his hands, he has no ability to show any reaction, doomed to bear the pressure of the swords penetrating his body. This was a brief summary of this series, not meant to deliver an in-depth analysis, since painting is what a painter should do, and it is up to the audience to interpret the artwork; unless we are willing to change the nature of art.
Morteza Pourhosseini Morteza Pourhosseini was born in Iran in 1985. He graduated in painting from Shahed Art University of Tehran. He had several solo and group exhibitions including his exhibition in Silk Road Gallery in Tehran (2009). He participated to the Fadjr International Art Festival in Museum of Contemporary Art of Tehran (2009), to Damoonfar Visual Art Festival in Tehran(2009), and to the Biennial of National Painting (2007). He won the first prize of Damoonfar Visual Art Festival in 2008.
This collection, ‘Curtains’, presents two distinct elements, blue curtains and a girl and their relationship. The blue curtains are the symbol of the girl’s and the audiences’ limitation which don’t allow them to see. In all paintings we can see that the girl is surrounded by the frame that is called window. The only way that she can make a relationship with the world is watching through the window, but when she can see the world through the window, we can’t see her or we can just see her back. So the emphasis of not been seeing, shows the cultural and religious worth that imposes to her in entire her life. On the other hand using the curtains in these painting points to the girl’s virginity, which is very important in our country. I related the curtains to the virginity because in our language we use the same term for both of them, which is called Pardeh. In addition to sexual problem we can see the conflict between her inner, the world that we don’t know anything about it, and herself too.
Leili Rashidi Silk Road Gallery
Oil on canvas
2010
130 x 180 cm
Leili Rashidi was born in 1986 in Tehran. She is graduated in painting from Shahed University in Tehran. She had several exhibitions in Tehran including in Silk Road Gallery in 2009. She participated in the 2nd biennial of Damounfar Visual Art Festival (2008), National Painting Biennial (2007).
Oil Digital print on Photo Paper
Jalal Sepehr Silk Road Gallery
2010
109 x 76 cm
Jalal Sepehr Jalal Sepehr was born in Tehran in 1968, where he lives and works. A self-taught photographer, he started taking pictures in 1994 while living in Japan (1991-96). He is one of the founder of the Fanoos studio, followed by the influential Fanoos Photo web site ( 2003 ). Currently he works as an Industrial photographer as well as an artistic and creative photographer of the nature. He is an active member of the Iranian Hunting and Nature Association, the Advertising and Industrial Association of Iran, and the Canadian Association for photographic Art. He has exhibited in many group shows including the International Art Photography Fair, Slovakia ( 2006 ), Fanoos Photo Slide Show, House of Artists, Tehran ( 2006 ), the 29th International Photo Festival, Knokke Heist, Belgium ( 2007-2009) and Paris photo 2009. In 2007, Sepehr won the first prize in the postcard competition of the Canadian Association for Photography Art. Also he was awarded second prize in category advertising for the entry titled Seasons in “Prix de La Photographie, Paris (2009)�.
Vahid Sharifian
Silk Road Gallery l Digital print on hologram Paper
2008
63 x 85 cm
My father is a democrat and through his chimney there are always hearts flying to the sky Maybe art is a strategy by which it, we can enjoy the pleasant moments and make them mature. For me this process is necessary in all my works. This pleasure sometimes can be shared by the public and the artist with his/her awareness. When this happens the public has the choice to become your family, friends, enemy or others like your president. The important point is to know the value of that moment and turn it to art. In the “my father is a democrat and through his chimney there are always hearts flying to the sky� series, these moments I shared with my father and his generation. That all their greatest desire are lie in the realization of these pictures. Although they were crying out from the bottom of their hearts for democracy, and their other greatest desire was Sofia Loren for years. They consider themselves democrats; while their soot covered wives slaved over the hot stove to put their dinner on the table. The extravagance of my vision is a kind of paradox with this revolutionary vision. Here the appropriation also influences into the concept of the work and becomes a kind of doubled paradox.
Vahid Sharifian Vahid Sharifian was born in 1982 in Isfahan, From 2006 to 2010 he has had several exhibitions in Iran and abroad among which exhibitions in Ave gallery (2006 and 2007), XVA gallery in Duabi (2008), Memorial to the Iraq war Institute of Contemporary Arts, London in 2007, Art Athens 2008, Tadaeus Ropac gallery in Paris 2009, Made in Iran, Asia house, London 2009, Iran inside out Chelsea Art Museum, New York 2009, Deputal Art Museum, Chicago 2009, Third Line Gallery Dubai 2010, Galleria il Gabiano, Rome, 2010, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen 2010.
Sharifian presents a series of mediated digital photographs based on a vintage, kitsch-saturated cookbook featuring Sophia Loren; installed in a sculptural environment, its overall effect is one of visual and conceptual reflection, sustaining the artist’s satirical insight into pop culture’s quirks and fetish for consumption. Flavorpill ,Shana Nys Dambrot / 03/26/2009 Vahid Sharifian’s Pop Art series of eerie holographic prints reinterprets images of a pouty Sophia Loren from a 70s cookbook (giant forks and spoons abound in a Koons-esque fashion), …. The overall effect is lightly surreal, but witty and compelling. Guardian, Nosheen Iqbal, /Friday 26 June 2009 This conflict blurts also from Vahid Sharifian’s jokey cookbook images of the American film star Sophia Loren. The young Sharifian, born in 1982 and influenced by the work of Jeff Koons, projects Loren on to holographic paper as a silly, westernised dream of his parents’ generation - baking European cakes in the dream kitchen - and as a boyhood fantasy. The title makes the ironic joke clear enough: My Father Is a Democrat and Through His Chimney There Are Always Hearts Flying to the Sky. The National, Christopher Michael/Jul 12, 2009 Sharafian has appropriated images of Sophia Loren from old cooking magazines, using them to proffer a kind of found surrealism. Artnet Magazine, Ben Davis/ June 2009 A more lighthearted ,camp reaction to life in Iran could be found in Vahid Sharifian’ s reappropriated photographs of sofia Loren. Using illustrations taken from 1972 cookbook, the series, titled My father is a democrat and trough his chimney there are always hearts flying to the sky, presented Loren in the kitchen and at the dinner table, making and serving pizzas and other symbols of Italian cuisine, printed on holographic paper to emphasize not only Loren’s otherworldly beauty but also the west that has been largely beyomd the grasp of ordinary Iranians, Sharifian explained that these works depicted “moments I shared with my father and his generation…their gratest desire lay in the hearts for democracy, their other greatest desire was Sophia Loren. Bidoun Magazine,Xerxes Cook/Oct,Dec 2009
Nikoo Tarkhani Oil on canvas
Silk Road Gallery
2010
120 x 140 cm
Oil on canvas
Oil on canvas
2010
2010
120 x 140 cm
120 x 140 cm
There are some traditions in any culture that are supposed to be beautiful. They seem beautiful in abstract; but if you take a closer look you might be seeing awful truths; Things that shake you to your very bone. They can’t be justified by today’s human rights and beliefs; and so they can’t be applied in modern life. But as we grew up, watching people around us honoring them, we get used to them. We are not able to see the consequences anymore. As for our society these traditions play a certain rule in people’s life. They can change a person’s destiny entirely. For being accepted in the society, sometimes you have to wear a mask; and sometimes this mask becomes a custom that you have to put on for a life time. Then where is reality of you-self? Where is that person who wanted to conquer the world? All those wishes and dreams are gone in a blink of an eye; all lost! Even you can’t remember that your laughter have the power to thrill the world! You are not able to smile anymore. For us Iranians “flower and bird painting” could be a metaphor of such traditions. This kind of painting is not as old as “Negargari”; but they are old enough to be considered a traditional form of Persian painting. The birds in this kind of painting look so innocent that you can’t believe that they might be able to harm a fly! Drinking blood is not what they are supposed to do; and that is not something that you could see at the first sight. May be it is our fault to forget where should we stand. It is not our place; not in the 21th century. So drink of my guilty blood you pure birds; I am the sacrifice you need for survival. And who I am except an ordinary woman who gave up laughing to win the medallion of chastity; the medallion that would shine forever on the top of my grave. Nikoo Tarkhani
Nikoo Tarkhani Nikoo Tarkhani was born in 1983 in Tehran- Iran. She studied Medicine and became MD in Iran. She took art courses in Mahe Mehr Art Institution with Aydin Aghdashloou and Behnam Kamrani. She had several exhibitions in Iran and abroad including her participation in Iranian Bodies curated by Edward Lucie-Smith and Janet Rady in Werkstattgallery in Berlin(2010), Florence Biennale ( 2009), Self, Ovenden Contemporary Art, a book of self-portrait from all over the world, 2009, and Auto-portraits II curated by Ali Ettehad in Silk Road Gallery (2010). Her art work is also a part of the New Hall Art Collection, a permanent collection of contemporary art by women artists, displayed throughout the Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, England.
There were twelve portraits which were covered by ancient Persian patterns. Audience could exchange the smaller pieces and make his/her desired image. The relation between portraits and patterns was in a way that if the audience completed a portrait, the patterns would be broken and if he/she put the patterns in order the portrait would be incomplete. What we call “model of a traditional society” is a powerful supervision trying to transform the whole society into an overall unit without paying attention to its multiplicity. It is basically against any kind of multiplicity; because in this pattern of social analysis, differences in personalities mean chaos. Ancient Persian role models could decrease any kind of history to the level of a mere ancient myth. All the insignificant events are trying to become a major myth. This “changing the stories” is exactly what in traditional constructions means “running away from chaos” or “keeping things in its own place”; and every single unit of society and mostly intellectual people call censorship. The main point in this discussion is how we explain cultural totality? If cultural totality of a society is the resultant of the thoughts of this society’s units; then how it could stand against single identities of that very same society? The answer could be that perhaps the resultant is not only of present time but past; and we should add the variable of time to it. The cultural totality of any traditional society is a resultant of major thoughts and beliefs of all time; Even if this historical totality is against its today’s people opinions. What makes Nikoo’s works so discussable are such challenges; the challenges between traditional patterns and a single identity. Ali Ettehad
Abu Dhabi Art 2010
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