Auto Portraits II

 “Auto Portraits II”
Curated by Ali Ettehad

Silk Road Gallery and Mohsen Art Gallery

      Fri. 2 till Wed. 14 July 2010    

Ali Ettehad says:  After “Auto Portraits I” that was a collective exhibition of 18 renowned Iranian artists containing photo-based art works; I decided to curate another exhibition with the same theme. The theme “Auto portrait” happened to be a much debated issue; not only because it was a reflection of how artist could see her or him; but also it showed the verity of socio-political point of views. It seems that Iranian artists could not see themselves as an isolated being. There seemed to be strange connection between artist and their social surroundings. At this point I thought it is a good idea to work on broader spectrum and there came the idea of “Auto portraits II” which is a collection of more than 29 artists. This time the medium is painting but only figurative style was eligible. I wanted to see the effect of photographic aesthetic on contemporary Iranian painting specifically after the big bang of digital cameras.  Because of all this, this exhibition is not only a usual curatorial project and become an artistic research. That is why I think we could progress with this project and include artists from other countries as well. 

About  "Auto Portraits II"
   The encyclopedia search for "self portrait" leads us to certain resultants.  But contemporary self portrait is an artist review on self identity.  The identity that has been taken shape based on the "others".  The identity that without concerning the social state and living experience of the artist is meaningless.  The contexts of contemporary self portraits are full of referrals which can inform us about an overall situation that artists are living in.  Contemporary artist does not sit in front of a mirror, to create a self portrait; instead he/she also tries to search around.
   The contemporary artists search in the context they're living in, show the identity they gained or suppressed on them, they even try to challenge with audience; quite opposite to modernists that used to make themselves a significant subject apart from society by searching in their souls.  Works of contemporary artists may not look exactly like their faces; or even a human portrait, and dozens of other possibilities.  We may say that the texts of such images have a certain tendency towards modern literature; we just need to review on the number of the novels of 20th century to see these tendencies clearly.

Artists: Shima Esfandiyari, Reza Hedayat , Farid Jahangir, Ramtin Jeyhoun, Meghdad Lorpoor, Shohreh Mehran, Bahman Mohammadi, Ghasem Mohammadi, Mehrdad Mohebali, Ahmad Morshedloo,  Nazar Mousavinia, Dana Nehdaran, Afra Nobahar, Farokh Nooroney, Shadi Noyani, Morteza Pourhoseini, Leyli Rashidi, Milad Rostami, Babak Roshani Nejad, Iman Safaie, Peyman Shafiee Zadeh, Ali Shayeste, Rasool Soltani, Bahar Taheri, Nikoo Tarkhani, Yaser Yaghoub Zadeh, Adel Yonesi, Hossein-Ali Zabehi, Ojan Zargarbashi

A review on" Auto-Portraits" By Bavand Behpoor

Self-portrait as a document of one society in flux

'Unselfish Auto-Portraits' exhibits work of 20 young Iranian artists

By Bavand Behpoor
Special to The Daily Star Monday, May 04, 2009


Review:

TEHRAN: A shower of white foam pours from the mirrored open-mouthed figure of Behrang Samadzadegan's untitled piece, taken from his series "H&H = Heaven & Hell." The cycle provokes a cacophony of questions to the spectator. "What if the dwellers of hell were given a chance to represent what they are experiencing?


What if I had the chance to depict the hell I have internalized?" Such questions follow you through "Auto-portraits," a group exhibition of photo-based self-portraits by 20 young Iranian artists, accompanied by an audio self-portrait by sound artist Kaveh Kateb.
Curated by photographer-critic Ali Ettehad, the show was on display in Tehran's Azad Art Gallery in April. Self-portraiture characterizes a great deal of Iranian contemporary art, which in its commitments seems more of a movement rather than a category. It is striking how sharply this art differs from its mainstream European counterpart. No matter how seriously it is dragged into the art market or is faithful to the western audience, it remains obsessively attentive to the social life of a people who may altogether ignore it. One might try to defend this movement for how hard it tries to compensate for the lack of attention given to the complicated situation in Iran, and to provide a careful, cruel critique.




Ali Ettehad and Nikoo Tarkhani's contributions (both of which are printed on mirrors) could be gendered reflections of one another. Tarkhani captures herself enclosed within an ornate cage. Elaborately framed, standing before a work of dire contemporary architecture, Ettehad is enclosed within a hooded army fatigue jacket. Both artists clutch objects to their chests. Having pushed through the mesh, Tarkhani's hands frame a bowel that should be a camera lens. Ettehad grasps a toy police car. Behrouz Rae's untitled work is self-deconstruction in action. Fully intact when it was hung on April 3, the print began to slowly fade, so that at the end of the exhibition it was blank paper, albeit one redolent of the smell of Sex Appeal cologne. Ghazaleh Hedayat's work resembles a wallpaper sample, whose pattern is comprised of her own face. At first, this isn't obvious to the spectator, who has to come very close to the picture to see that it is made up of some 4000 of Hedayat's self-portraits. ("What if I am imprisoned in a mirror-worked oriental shrine which reflects my shattered image thousands of times?") The new current of young Iranian contemporary artists takes the revolutionary ambition more seriously than the revolutionaries themselves and tries to remember what the revolution is apparently eager to render unforgettable. Thus, it can be said that Iranian contemporary art has taken a personal interest in a political structure that takes no interest in it. The art looks into itself as a by-product of a discourse in order to make itself critical, thereby destabilizing the rigidity of the steely, frozen catastrophe around it. More an accomplice than a judge, the current's powerful core is its rejection of being a victim. All this expresses itself in variations on a theme of self-portraiture. The works Ettehad has chosen here show a striking similarity in attitude without sharing much resemblance in their modes of expression. All these bitter, confessional self-portraits - which the catalogue suggests are more related to society than the "self" - are imbued with a courage to cut through one's image to reach an insight into the over all situation. The selection is, surprisingly, less about personal unreachable "histories" than one collective history that has been so cruel towards the mutliplicity of individuals. The works go beyond a sense of narcissism and push aside what one understands of self-portraiture and use the image of the artist himself to neutralize any personal identity, as Samira Alikhanzadeh does by using pyramidical mirrors which depict those standing next the spectator, rather than the spectator himself. It seems the current movement of Iranian contemporary art develops against a hatred of Lacan and his famous mirror or void. It tries to escape the mirror-worked shrine, to break through the mirror, to liberate the one trapped behind it.

Parastoo Forouhar

Samira Alikhanzadeh

Shahpour Pooyan

Katayoun Karami

Reza Abedini

Vahid SharifianSadegh Tirafkan

Rozita Sharafjahan

Nikoo H Tarkhani

Mehran Mohajer

Khosrow Hasanzadeh

Katayoon Dehchamani

Ghazaleh HedayatBehrouz Rae

Behrang Samadzadegan

Behnoosh Sharifi

Amirali Ghasemi

Ali Ettehad

Afshan Ketabchi

"Auto portraits"
It is hard to decipher and understand an art work; without knowing the context in which the art work is being created; and also the context in which the artist is living. A contemporary art work usually contains of some elements from the society structure in which it is created."Self portrait" is a kind of art work that emphasizes these referrals more than other forms of art works. Based on the historical experiences in this field, self portrait is a resultant of the artist's awareness of "self"; and in more common way, of this tendency towards the society. Since the middle of 1370s, the tendency towards this kind of artwork has been increased significantly, among the Iranian artists. Though, the expanding of digital media can be a cause of this; but from a historical point of view; the latest evolutions of the last decade in Iran seems to be the main reason for this. "Auto portraits" is a collection of the works of artists who used the medium of photography; either by using the photography itself or performing post-photographic processes on the frames. Although some of these works have been exhibited before; but showing them together, reveals a new interpretation that helps the audiences for historical understanding of their recent age. At the end it is necessary to remind that a significant number of the most important art works of the recent decade are not present in this collection because of the time and space limitations.
-Ali Ettehad-