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GALERIE EMMANUEL PERROTIN PARIS: Farhad Moshiri, �Fire of Joy� Aya Takano "To Lose Is To Gain" - 23 June 2012 to 28 July 2012 Current Exhibition |
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Farhad Moshiri,
Fire of Joy� 2012, Hand embroidery on canvas 150 x 213 cm / 59 x 83 3/4 inches |
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Farhad Moshiri, “Fire of Joy” Opening Saturday 23 June 2012 / 4 - 9 pm 23 June - 28 July 2012 Galerie Perrotin, Paris Galerie Perrotin is proud to present the solo show by the Iranian artist Farhad Moshiri, “ Fire of Joy “ from 23rd June to 28th July 2012. After twelve years in Los Angeles, where he completed his training at the California Institute of the Arts, Farhad Moshiri now lives and works in Tehran. Inspired by Pop Art, he has developed a remarkable and hybrid visual language that draws at once from popular Iranian and Western cultures: “The Iranians are searching for their identity. Depending on their mood, they lean towards the East or the West. Iran is undergoing an inevitable phenomenon that complicates, confounds and diversifies traditions. This is why I am just as inspired by the mall or the bazaar as I am by the ornamentation aesthetic that belongs to Iranian culture.” In the exhibition “Fire of Joy”, the artist continues to draw upon the traditional “feminine” technique of bead embroidery for its ornamental qualities, which he combines with thick layers of acrylic and gold leaf. He is here playing upon the concept of “happiness”, which for him leaves greater place for sarcasm and cynicism. Here Iranian craftsmanship and pop culture merge or often confront each other with irony by using as much the advertising aesthetics for housewives of the 1950’s (“Curl”) as the popular western icons of comics (“Uncaged”, “Breath”, etc.) In a country that is mistrustful of representation, Moshiri, like a collector or antique hunter, lifts all kinds of images from daily life such as emblems of kitsch, censored photos, childish motifs and western advertising. “I like to uncover things that have no artistic pretention, that have been created by others and strive to recondition them in the form of works of art.” In “Anatomy of a Woman 2”, for example, an icon of Persian tradition is treated like an anatomical image. In “Mystery Man” a face covered with coloured circles refers to the fuzzy faces of censorship and in “God” the word repeated infinitely on extremely coloured and sparkling backgrounds such as luminous signs functions like a slogan. Through these effects of juxtaposition, stereotypes and sacred or taboo references (the female body, censorship, God), Moshiri’s language reveals his powerful dissidence defined in relation with other things in a playful, offbeat manner. In one of his installations Moshiri collected a thousand key-fobs that form the phrase “See God in Everyone” on one wall and on another, a multitude of knives of different sizes and colours are stuck along with 21 European portraits gathered by Farhad Moshiri from the last century to write the word “Quiet”. In his installations Moshiri uses the tradition of ready made by gathering found objects, an artistic practice that is entirely ignored in Iran, making use of oxymoron to reveal the ambiguity of a country that is ceaselessly transforming itself. Aya Takano "To Lose Is To Gain" Opening Saturday 23 June 2012 / 4 - 9 pm 23 June - 28 July 2012 Galerie Perrotin, Paris Galerie Perrotin, Paris is presenting a solo show of Aya Takano, “To Lose Is To Gain” from 23rd June to 28th July 2012 bringing together a new series of paintings in rectangular and diamond shapes inspired by the earthquake that struck Japan in March 2011. Painter, artist, creator of Mangas and author of science-fiction novels, Takano belongs to the Kaikai Kiki artistic production studio created by Takashi Murakami in 2001. We find surprising and sundry references in her paintings : Italian Renaissance, animes, art from the world of Ukiyo-e (Hokusai for example), particularly that of Shunga and the erotic prints in her work. Slender child-women, often naked, inhabit her half fantastic, half real universe and more rarely, feminised masculine characters. These mutant-like figures with oversized eyes and elongated legs dally in amorous scenes and improbable encounters with mythical animals in lunar landscapes and urban settings. Her colours are always delicate and shaded, the surface and chromatic richness of her paintings at times recalling fresco techniques. As the artist explains, “When I first began work on this collection of images, only a few months separated me from the events of 3.11. Overwhelmed by the breadth of the shock, I was virtually unable to think or paint, but I tried, in the midst of that confusion, to focus on the path down which Japan had come and the future to which it was moving. It is this which I have painted and the images are special ones that could only have come from such a chaotic time.” The small diamond shaped paintings literally float in the same space as the monumental canvasses. The works are gathered around three themes: past, present and future. Paintings such as “Past: at the soshimai In shin-yoshiwara”, 2011, which represents intimate scenes tied to the traditional image of Japan, as well as episodes of violence resulting from the recent history of the country, belong to the first group of works. On the contrary, in paintings like “Present” 2011, we see frightening scenes that are bizarrely connected to dreamlike visions. Finally, as is often the case in her works, Takano imagines an upside down world where cities and their inhabitants are not subject to the laws of gravity and roam freely in futuristic galaxies (“Future: with their foundations in outer-space, metropolises float in mid-air”, 2011 and “Future: cities shaped like internal organs and cubic vehicles”, 2011). |
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