Bring the Brains with yourself
Sublation an art piece of Peyman Shafieezadeh by Homayoun Sirizi
16 November – 14 December 2018
“The idea”, which enticed me to choose the name ‘Spinning’ for the suggestion of Peyman Shafieezadeh to curate one of his works, stemmed from misreading this postscript on page 17 of the book “to question and to fight; A Conversation with Dr Manouchehr Ashtiani”. The phrase ‘understanding and improving something through employing it in one’s own text’ seemed to me a clear, concise and abundantly succinct description of what I had formerly done in my many years of writing and reflecting on artworks. I just did not know that in German philosophy it is called ‘aufhaben’ which in Farsi translates to a word which means spinning, though it is not so. This play started with misreading and of course with miss-spelling the word in this sentence, since the correct word is ‘aufheben’ and not ‘aufhaben’. This was quite a gaffe, though not quite as big as mine, where I forgot to read the name of the author of the book which was written within quotation marks at the end of the sentence and it was “Nassaji”, which, in English, translates to “spinning or weaving”.
However, I intended for ‘spinning’ to be synonymous with ‘aufheben’.
2. “Kaveh tears Zahhak’s scroll.”
A page from a copy of The Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp, attributed to Mohammad Gadimi Gilani, between 1525 and 1530 AD, Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts,
Flatnesss of Zahhak’s throne seems that has what persuaded Peyman Shafieezadeh to examine its solidity, stability and steadfastness. The fact that the throne was formerly assumed by Zahhak tempted me to remind you to “bring brain with yourself”; Perhaps and probably, you would also be tempted to tear scrolls.
3. One and two hundred and fifty chairs, an appropriation of “One and three chairs” by Joseph Kosuth
“Jay-gah” is an arrangement of miniature becoming critical in the scale of sight. In his work, Peyman draw the relation between power and “surface” to the tensions caused by the inflation of “volume”; the same inflation which, with the mediation of destruction of volume, in distorting the representation of power is infused with suspicion of eternity, in a manner that if a throne is always a throne, assuming it will work out, free from harm. However kings, in Shahnameh;“the Book of Kings” the likes of Jamshid, Zahhak, Fereydoun, Keykhosrow, Nowzar, Afrasiab, Keykavous, Bahman, Darab, Gashtasb and many more, would rise and fall within the verses of poems, how is it not clear why they all slipped on these thrones? Perhaps because it is the matter of one and three thrones rather than merely one throne. One of which is Zahhak’s throne, the other is the one Ferdowsi, the poet, has written in his poetry and the last is the one Mohammad Ghadimi Gilani has depicted. Nevertheless that “one throne” is the one Kaveh had overthrown the one that Peyman Shafieezadeh shows, no need to be overthrown, since it does not seem to be the seat of stability and solidity. Although no matter from which angle one looks at it, somebody appears to be assuming it: Nasser-el-din shah is sitting by the stairs, Churchill is sitting and painting, electric chair is waiting for the convict and Vladimir Lenin, sitting on his wheelchair, is gazing steadily at nowhere. One is Sigmund Freud’s chair, other chairs and dining table at Dr Mohammad Mosaddeq’s home of exile in Ahmadabad Castle, Che Guevara, on a tractor seat ploughing his utopia, looks like Kaveh, and Simone de Beauvoir, who is sitting by Sartre’s grave, in tears. Picasso, Rembrandt, Dali, Magritte, Freud, Bacon, Wilson, Morris, Braque, Eloir, Warhol, Sally Mann, Weston, Beuys and Fotouhi are also there, with their chairs and Gaddafi, Bin-Ali, Stalin, Hitler and chauchescu are, as well, seated.
In spinning the piece I attempted to weave the essence of “volume” into a cube, as its simplest presentation, and to weave the “throne” into a chair, so that, on square carpet of Kandovan, one would fold each six in the order of a cross to form a chair of paper and awareness.
…
4. Sohrab Mahdavi and I were looking for an appropriate translation for ‘curating’. The reason for the quest was not merely our obsession to write properly in Farsi, we could not “understand” the way of understanding it in Farsi. After plenty of suggestions, which all had been disapproved for different reasons, Sohrab proposed “dabbaghi” which translates to “tannery”. It was better than the rest though the problem, to me, is the awful odour of the term. Tanning is processing; we might not be able to find a term closer than this, although in this manner what occurs to an artwork through the process of tanning makes it impossible to access its original nature again; leather will never transform into animal skin again.
Intervention in artist’s practice is the critical point of selecting this term, and further than the term the nature of this act. Neither to the extent where it is managed or tanned, nor to the opposite where are some aspects not taken into account. For the reason ahead I opt for spinning: weaving fibres of image and meaning to the strength which something is woven. If not, at least the warp and the weft are separable.
ABOUT PEYMAN SHAFIEEZADEH
He was born in 1983 in Tehran, Iran and is a graduate of Painting from the faculty of Art and Architecture (Azad University, Tehran). He was awarded the Tehran National Sculpture Biennale’s first prize award in 2017, shortlisted for MOPCAP award in 2015 and was of the top 10 selected by the Jury in Façade Video Festival of Plovdiv. His work has been exhibited in Gwangju Biennale, Beijing International Art Biennale and also in many spaces such as Triumph Gallery in Russia, Hinterland in Austria and Red Bull House of Art, SOMARTS Gallery in USA.
ABOUT HOMAYOUN SIRIZI
Homayoun Askari Sirizi was born in 1981 in Kerman, Iran and is a graduate of Architecture from University of Tehran. His works include installations, performances and video projects and often comment on Iran’s social and political landscape. The Test of Democracy (2005), A Probable War (2006), U-turn to Utopia (2007) and Back to the Future (2008) are some of his works. He also writes regularly for a variety of Iranian art and cultural magazines.
Date and Location:
Pejman Foundation: Kandovan
16 November – 14 December 2018, 4 – 8 PM
Opening: Friday, 16 November 2018, 4 – 8 PM
Photos by Mohammad Rezaee