Vernissage
Wednesday, March 28, 2018, 5pm to 9pm
Public Days
Thursday, March 29, 2018, 1pm to 9pm
Friday, March 30, 2018, 1pm to 8pm
Saturday, March 31, 2018, 11am to 6pm
Dastan is pleased to announce its participation in Art Basel Hong Kong 2018 with a solo presentation of works by Sam Samiee titled “Bedroom Posters”. Marking Dastan’s first participation in Art Basel, the presentation is composed of a couch, pillows, 3D objects, wallpaper and printed iPad paintings. Rather than a collection of differing elements, the playful installation should be regarded as a single ‘image’, or painting. This ‘spatial painting’ of Samiee is also the synthesis of the history of Western painting and his research on Persian “Adab,” a word which stands for the concepts of both ethics and aesthetics. At times, the works appear to have been be created by several artists, but in fact, Samiee is the sole creator.
The presentation asks the viewer to break from contemporary art’s reliance on a singular lens. The artist also attempts to deconstruct the symbol of the crucifix, as it has been a central theme in the history of western visual culture. To do so, he will create patterns of the crucifix based on the Quran, bringing to light an Islamic understanding of it.
Sam Samiee (b. 1988, Tehran, Iran) is an artist, curator and writer based in Amsterdam and Tehran. The winner of the Dutch Royal Painting Prize (2016), he has finished a two years residency program at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten and since then has showed his work throughout Europe and Iran. In his work, Samiee focusses on the practices of painting and research in philosophy, Persian Literature, the history of painting and psychoanalysis.
Characteristic of his work is the break from the tradition of flat painting and a return to the original question of how artists can represent the three-dimensional world in the space of painting as a metaphor for a set of ideas. Therefore most of his work is presented as immersive painterly installations. Along with his career as an artist, he has curated multiple shows, most recently the presentation of Dastan’s Basement at UNTITLED, Art Miami Beach 2017.
Dastan (est. 2012, Tehran, Iran) features an extensive and multi-dimensional program, focusing on exhibitions, events and publications on Iranian contemporary and modern art. Dastan’s program includes Dastan's Basement, Dastan+2 and Dastan:Outside. Dastan’s original space, Dastan’s Basement, was established in 2012 in Tehran, Iran. The Basement is dedicated to exhibiting Iranian art with a focus on emerging and experimental art. In October 2015, Dastan opened Dastan+2, a new gallery within walking distance of the Basement to showcase works by established Iranian artists and masters.
Dastan has continuously hosted pop-up curated exhibitions called Dastan:Outside. The program features exhibitions that are usually site-specific and mostly involve experimental and non-traditional formats of exhibiting art. Dastan:Outside's newest temporary space, Electric Room, which was opened in June 2017 in downtown Tehran, focuses on showcasing short-term experimental projects and occasional single-piece exhibits.
This presentation is partly funded by Mondriaan Fund, The Netherlands as part of its Participation International Art Fairs funds.
The Mondriaan Fund is a publicly financed fund for visual art and cultural heritage. It supports innovative projects and activities by visual artists, intermediaries (curators and critics), museums and other heritage organizations, art institutions, archives, galleries and commissioning parties. All grants are awarded with a view to promoting the production and presentation of relevant Dutch visual art and heritage in the Netherlands and abroad, where a commercial market is (yet) undeveloped.
