Sam Samiee | "175 Trials & Errors": Dastan's Basement

Dastan's Basement shows "175 Trials & Errors", drawings of Sam Samiee, from Friday, June 9, 2023. The exhibition will be on view until Friday, June 23, 2023.  Sam Samiee (b. 1988, Tehran, Iran) is a painter, essayist, and psychoanalyst-in-training based in Berlin and Tehran. He completed his Rijksakademie residency in 2015 and graduated from the University of Arts and Design, ArtEZ in 2013, where he was a painting lecturer until 2020. With Dastan, Samiee has held one solo exhibition (“Blush of the Soil”, +2, Tehran, 2022), several group exhibitions ("The Joy of Painting", Dastan's Basement, Tehran, 2022 | "Soft Edge of the Blade", Frieze Cork Street, London, 2022 | "Update 5.0", V-Gallery, Tehran, 2018), curated a show ("A Camp", Dastan's Basement, Tehran, 2017), and participated in several art fairs. "175 Trials & Errors" is Samiee's tribute to "drawing" as the foundation of painting. Samiee believes drawing serves rationalism and structure to painting (every metamorphosis in the structure of a painting presupposes a mutation in the drawing). Samiee studied painting under teachers in Iran and the Netherlands who saw drawing as its cornerstone. He has been drawing since 2005 yet has never made a solo exhibit of such works. "175 Trials & Errors" braves to show works that paved the way for Samiee's artistic experimentations through trial and error. Drawings of Samiee are thematically hung (figures, flowers, landscapes, and imaginative drawings) within the restructured interior of Dastan's Basement that the artist has done. The exhibit’s title lays bare the artist's relationship with his creations – the humble self-organization of drawing. Sam Samiee has exhibited his works at the 10th Berlin Biennale, at Kunstmuseum, Hague; the Parasol Unit Foundation, London; Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester; Art Basel, Hong Kong; Liste Art Fair, Basel, among many other international presentations. Some of his drawings are held by the Taylors Museum and the Centraal Museum of Utrecht. Other works of Samiee appear in the collection of the Kunstmuseum | AkzoNobel Art Foundation | De Nederlandse Bank | Kunsthalle Gevelzberg. "Footnotes to Life", a monograph on his work, became possible through the Wolvecamp Prize for painting in 2018. "Footnotes to Life" won the Best Dutch Book Design Award in 2020.