Fereydoun Ave | "Notes II": Dastan's Basement

Dastan is pleased to announce the opening of two exhibitions by Fereydoun Ave: “Notes II” at Dastan’s Basement, and “Homework for Long Winter Nights” at Dastan+2. Both shows open on Friday, April 6, 2018. “Notes II” will close on April 13, while “Homework for Long Winter Nights” will continue until March 4.

“Notes II” includes four series of works (‘notebooks’) by Fereydoun Ave done during different periods: “(No More) Sea Shells (on the Sea Shore)”, a series of 1999 drawings when Ave was working alongside Cy Twombly in Seychelles; “Bamboo Leaf”, a series of mixed-media-on-paper ‘drawings’ of bamboo leafs executed around 1998; “Photographs for Laal Dahlias” (2007), a series of photographs taken when the artist was preparing to work on his large “Laal Dahlias” series; and “Souvenirs”, a series of collages first shown in April 2016 at Dastan’s Basement.

Writing on “Notes II”, Kaveh Najmabadi explains: “Perhaps one of the best ways to learn more about the private life of others is reading their memories. Artists usually depict their daily memories and notes as images.Fereydoun Ave has been making images of his past year’s notes (‘drawings’), at the begging of every new year. In doing so, he shares all of his concerns with his environment and shows their effects on pieces of paper. Following his career, we notice that as an artist, preserving nature has been one of his concerns. Maybe, in his frank way of expression, he reminds us: 'we can preserve the world around us easily, and reach tranquility’ —the very same tranquility one can feel when viewing his works.”

“Homework for Long Winter Nights” is a series of mixed media works on paper all executed in 2018. Inspired by the art of book-making and illuminated manuscripts, Ave has created drawings that appear as pages with elaborate designs in the margins, sans any textual content.

Fereydoun Ave (b. 1945, Tehran, Iran) is one of the most influential individuals in Iranian contemporary art and his prolific efforts have taken diverse aspects. He received his BA in Applied Arts for Theatre from Arizona State University, studied film at New York University, and studied at the University of Seven Seas (aka Semester at Sea). During his career, which spans over five decades, he has successfully taken many different roles including artist, designer, art director, collector, curator, gallerist and art patron. His artworks have been featured in many solo exhibitions along with hundreds of group shows in galleries and museums all around the world. As well as being purchased by many notable private collectors, Ave’s work has been acquired by prestigious art institutions including The British Museum in London, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Los Angles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, Cy Twombly Foundation and Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (TMOCA).