Not being a
curator I feel a bit awkward attempting to write this introduction. I
can only explain why, as an artist myself, I
considered it so important to try and organize this show with artists
who live and work in Tehran.
I lived in New York between 1996 and 2003, when, having reaching a point
of immense depression, I decided to move
back to Greece. The underlying cause of my depression is not original in
any sense. I think I ‘woke up’ when the twin
towers fell, and the aftermath of the tragedy made me realize that the
West had so much to offer me largely because of
the other nations around the world which it had destroyed in the pursuit
of wealth and power. I couldn’t enjoy anything
anymore and one day, abruptly, I left for India. There, I discovered
that spirituality did exist after all, and that faith in
something other than materiality can offer happiness. I know this sounds
rather arbitrary, but it is the truth all the same.
When I left for India the first time, I didn’t even know what Hinduism
was or what shape the subcontinent was. But when
I was there, I realized that many of their main concepts were ideas I’d
had for years without ever knowing there was an
ancient system of thought which supported and explained my own.
It was in Varanasi, the holy city of Shiva where the river Ganga
(Ganges) is worshipped as a Goddess, that I first felt that
I should try to communicate this sense of spirituality and to address
two ideas: that what our developed eyes consider
negative may actually be highly positive, and that a good part of what
we consider healthy and good is actually bringing
about our planet’s end. For example, the notion that a river may be a
Goddess seems funny and ‘naïve’ to the western
mind, but it is actually a million times better to love the river and
revere nature than your car or your latest technologiccal
gadget. Because you need only look around you to realize that none of
your new playthings, however cool—not even
your new car—will ever make you, or anyone else, truly happy, while
swimming in the divine waters of a Goddess can
have miraculous results. I’m sure any sceptics reading this will smile
at what they consider a naive and romantic notion,
though I have to say that I see nothing romantic in the fact that the
Western ideal of progress has damaged the soul and
brought unhappiness and destruction to the planet; that there is nothing
romantic in the thought that a river may be a Goddess; and that the
magnificence of nature dwarfs all our creations. This is the truth, pure
and simple, but we have
become blind to simple truths with the power to heal us. While the whole
planet seems aboil, a few insanely greedy
people have grabbed all the wealth and won’t let go. Unfortunately, art
has become a perfect link in this cataclysmic
farce because, instead of opening people’s minds and helping them get in
touch with their feelings, it seems to have
become a thrilling horse race with millions of dollars riding on the
result.
In 2005, it was with this in mind, struggling to find a way into a
dialogue with the current situation in my work, and a
way of communicating the sense of a more spiritual approach to life
which I had experienced in Varanasi while bathing
in the holy waters of the Ganga, that I asked several people who support
the arts to sponsor a journey from Athens to
Varanasi. The idea was this: every one or two days I would create and
mail something that I found moving to the people
sponsoring this project. I travelled by bus and train across Turkey,
Iran and Pakistan. The journey lasted four and a half
months, two and a half of which I spent in Iran, mainly in Tehran.
I made the most interesting works while in Tehran, where I fell in love
with the refined manners and sophistication
of the Iranians I met. Since I had only heard awful things about Iran
from the media while in New York, I had a very
distorted idea of the country. I thought it would be very dangerous and
violent, and had decided to dash across it as
quickly as possible. However, when there, I was shocked to realize the
extent to which we are brainwashed and forcefed
propaganda by the small group of people who control the biggest media
corporations. It is hard to grasp just how
much damage they do to our minds until you go there and look for
yourself. I was angry and wanted to do something
about it, but what could I do?
This question found a possible answer when I saw the video performance
by Majid Ma’soumi Rad called Utopiography.
It was a video performance of himself sitting at a desk and shooting a
rifle at photos of his friends and parents, his
girlfriend, I think, the director of the museum and others. The camera
was behind him and you could hear his voice as
he went on and on in a passionate tone of voice, though I had no idea
what he was talking about, since it was all in Farsi.
I asked and was told he was mainly complained about the way all these
people treated him. There was a rare innocence
and true courage in this video performance which aroused my curiosity
about art production in Tehran. I saw a few
more shows after that, but not enough to help me form a satisfactory
impression of the scene. I was very busy with my
own work at that time, but i thought I should try to return in the
future with that goal in mind: to research contempporary
Iranian art production with a view to organizing an exhibition—in Athens
first, and perhaps later the US—with
works by artists who live and work in Tehran.
At long last, I went back two years later in the summer of 2007, with
the encouragement of Giorgos Dragonas, who
believed in the project from the start and who made this show possible.
But I returned to a very different Iran from
that of 2005. I won’t try to analyze the changes. I will just say that
in two years the economic situation has worsened
considerably, and that people in Tehran seemed more nervous and sad than
before. Nonetheless, despite the gloom,
the economy difficulties and the lack of freedom, the people I met in
Tehran still seemed happier, more gentle and
more humane than the average Athenian, for example. That women in Iran
have to cover their hair and bodies in a way
that does not arouse desire seems to me an absurd restriction of
freedom; but then, I have never seen women more
unhappy than the Americans I met when living in New York. Accepting
their fate unquestioningly, because the ‘freedom’
of choice they supposedly enjoy makes them question things less, they
become more trapped as a consequence. It’s
easier to resist oppression mentally when you are faced with it in
tangible form. When oppression is disguised as
freedom and you think that you are free, then it is much harder to
resist or even be aware of the oppression. These
observations made me question the prevailing idea that women under
Islamic rule suffer more than the ‘free’ women of
the West. Ultimately, we all suffer in different ways, and religious
rules and restriction of freedoms may actually bring
more happiness in some cases; what we keep forgetting is that there is
no one natural order or things. Unfortunately,
‘happiness’ is now so overused as a word that no one even pays attention
to it or truly thinks about it. Yet, we all know
whether we are happy or not, and we know exactly what’s going on within
our soul, even if we choose to ignore it. Happpiness
is the one thing that matters in this meaningless life, and the only
thing that is truly worth living for.
But I seem
to have moved on from the subject at hand, so let me get back to the
point: I returned to Tehran in
the summer of 2007 to research contemporary art production over a month
and a half. I started off at the
Museum of Contemporary Art where, with the help of Hamid Severi, the
head of the Research department, I
was granted access to their archives. My intention was to conduct some
personal research: I wanted to let
the material guide me in my decisions. I thought that if the works
proved of little interest to me, I would just
go back to Greece and go swimming with my friends (it was mid summer
after all). As it happened, the works
filled me with such happiness that I forgot the blue Aegean sea
completely. I suffered images of public hangiings
in the newspapers on a daily basis (a definite trend in the summer of
2007, which, thank God, was banned
this year) and I spent 45 days visiting four to five studios daily to
see work by artists I had selected from the
museum archives. But then they introduced me to their friends, and I
realized that I had selected people from
different groups and that several of these groups barely knew the others
(Tehran is, after all, very big). And
despite the heat and the hard work, it was a source of great happiness
to discover moving, intelligent, daring,
honest free spirits revealed in different art-forms. I noticed that I
had selected works from different generattions
of artists and in different media. After looking at all the works I had
selected, I also noticed that all of
them featured an element than went beyond realism, and that these were
not at all the works of ‘oppressed’
people. The works revealed a sensitivity and a mental freedom which was
expressed in refined manners and,
frequently, a sharp sense of humour (as in the case of, for example,
‘contemporary Christ’).
I named the show “Lion under the Rainbow: contemporary art from Tehran”.
The title is borrowed from a
painting by Vahid Sharifian, and I chose it initially because the Lion,
being a powerful symbol of ancient Persia,
remains to this day a symbol of the grandness of the Persian identity.
It is hiding though, under the rainbow.
Happiness seems to be waiting for it somewhere over this rainbow, though
it is a Western kind of happiness.
Here the Lion in its strength is lying underneath the rainbow, as if
under a bridge or shelter with no access to
the other side. One can interpret the image as one chooses. But the most
powerful reason for choosing this
title were the works in the show whose fantastical elements reveals an
unexpectedly different perspective. It
is also important to point out that this is contemporary art from
Tehran. Tehran is not strictly representative
of Iran; it has its own character and the works produced there have
their own identity. The selection of the
works is personal. I believe that when seen together, they offer a
vision of truth, courage and hope. |