“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
