Of being and Singing; works by Lavasani, Alikhanzadeh and Mir Azimi.
Of being and singing. The collective knowledge matured by Iranian artists over the centuries is oriented towards or against various philosophical and mystical concepts that go beyond aesthetics. The concept of mundus imaginalis is one of the main paradigms especially in the visual art of the country. Traditionally, the Iranian painter is convinced that he represents the image of the original through materialistic perception.
This collective heritage can be found in the works of contemporary artists through innovative theories and paradigms. A phenomenon that becomes more interesting when it blends with the approaches and trends of Western art in the post-internet era.
Of Being and Singing is an exhibition commissioned by Commissioner Hadi Mozaffari of the Visual Arts Affair Office and Mehdi Afzali, CEO of the Institute of Contemporary Arts Developments, conceived by the curator Ali Bakhtiari and exhibiting works by Reza Lavassani, Samira Alikhanzadeh and Ali Meer Azimi.
Based on the title of the international exhibition May You Live In the Interseting Times, Of being and Singing is a tribute to life, a tribute to the precious moments of the past, present and future. This exhibition brings a message of peace from the Iranian cultural and artistic community, usually little treated by the international media.
Three artists who each work in different disciplines will show Iran by honoring glory and time, identity and memory, reality and dreams. Contrary to the common imagery existing in international environments, which wants Iranian art based on local concepts and motifs, each of these artists, with their own style, will show the universal aspects of Iranian art.
Reza Lavassani (1962)
Born and resident in Tehran. He is an artist who uses various materials. The Life installation started in 2012 and Reza worked for three years on all the different details of the work. He deliberately chose to work with paper mache to highlight the concept of recycling, both objectively and symbolically. This work of art is a poetic narrative of the splendor of life, and at the same time, a poetic image of the concept of time. His extraordinary way of presenting this work of art describes the eternal faith of the artist in recreation and in the eternal cycle of life, and enriched with his aesthetic touch. Life emphasizes the spectacularity (and theatricality) of sculpture and installation .
Samira Alikhanzadeh (1967)
Looking towards the future, it reminds us of the past. Born and resident in Tehran, after graduating from the art university, after exhibiting her first paintings, she no longer painted. He has turned his attention to new media, the media of his time. He chose family photos as the raw material of his time and, by tampering with the images, he analyzed his ideas about identity and memory. Samira, cutting out the portraits from the background of the old photos and arranging them on a metallic texture, leads the viewer to look for a visual narration, which goes beyond just viewing photographs.
Ali Meer Azimi (1984)
Lives and works in Isfahan. He went through and experienced different expressive means, such as cinema, philosophy, visual arts, to create his own narrative works. Working on the idea of the "field" and "counter field", and also on the "reversal dept" and extending them towards the incompleteness of language and dream, he created an active installation. The main idea of his work is the comparison between the talent of learning the language between a child (human being) and a chaffinch cub
Ali Bakhtiari (1985)
He is a curator, based in Tehran. Having worked with several museums and institutions, his practice focuses on the relationship between art and cultural studies. He works with film, graphics, painting, sculpture, and all kinds of material culture to represent a contemporary map of his country's cultural geography. Its goal is to expand international awareness of currents in Iranian art and culture. “Apart from the idea of time and being, I considered the concept of Mundus Imaginalis, a philosophical approach deeply rooted in the history of Iranian art”, says Ali Bakhtiari of the exhibition.
The project wants to represent a tribute to glory and time, to identity and memory, to reality and dreams. Each of these artists with their own style and expressive means shows the universal aspects of Iranian art.
Of Being and Singing
From 11 May to 24 November 2019
Place: Venice, Fondaco Marcello
