Artists from Iran offer a perspective on the country’s socio-political and cultural landscape

‘Regarding Iran: the apparent acquiescence of conceptual poetics’ is the title of a show curated by Shaheen Merali that takes place at The Guild, Mumbai. The participating artists are Amin Nourani, Farideh Lashai, Barbad Golshiri, Mohammad Hossein Emad, Mitra Tabrizian, Peyman Hooshmandzadeh, and Shirin Neshat. Their aesthetic inventions offer a great probability for an inquiring viewer to develop a clear understanding of issues pertaining to the country and its contested place in the global order.

It’s the third exhibit of an ongoing curatorial project that thus far been executed in two countries. The curator has worked for ‘The Stalking of Absence’ at the Tokyo Gallery and with Kunsthalle Brot from Vienna for ‘The Promise of Loss’, to present works that investigate and provide an account of Iran’s volatile situation.

For The Guild show, the artists’ creations from within and without Iran is showcased as a medium scale group show. The research for it involved both remote conversations and studio visits, finally curating the works for the first ever comprehensive presentation of work from Iran in India by these talented contemporary artists who work in Iran, as well as in England and the US.

Much of their work is widely found in the International arena of a visual culture affected by a sense of longing and belonging that permits specific identity politics conclusively inflected and wrapped in assemblages, on basis of an ethical position that is encased within a poetic distance. The curatorial position has taken into consideration the following observations:

1. Curating any ethnic or regional domain, including that of the country, is made tougher by its sophisticated, cultural palimpsest, the region’s traditions and also its people; although it’s still vital, even perhaps pertinent, to evaluate its specific cultural and aesthetic developments.

2. Historically, Iran is of ontological importance. In its present constellation, the country has suffered many problems and endured different challenges circumstances facing challenges from biased nations and religiosities, which combined with its inner reactive epithet, makes for a pertinent set of conditions that enables the production and sets down both the role and rules, of aesthetics for them to function, till now, within a curtailed freedom.