Ali Beheshti | "Sector": Dastan's Basement

 

Dastan's Basement is elated to host a solo exhibition by Ali Beheshti on Friday July 11, 2025. "Sector" will be on view until Friday August 1. This is the artist's fourth solo exhibition with Basement. His last exhibition, "Opaque" (2021), dealt with form "within an architectural framework." Ali Beheshti lives and works in Lyon, France.

Material has agency in the world of Ali Beheshti. The artist is a witness to the interaction of different materials and picks their certain "behaviors" over others. Put differently, a chemical relationship exists when materials interact, eliciting certain behaviors in them, that the artist bears witness to. Forms appear next to each other as surfaces. The title of the exhibit, "Section", refers to the juxtaposition of surfaces; as such, this collection points more to the act of construction than depiction. Through "construction", however, something else comes about – architectural forms whose designs are not thought out in advance. Much like in his previous solo exhibtion, "Opaque" (2021), the artist is using black pigment, acrylic, and ink, which he applied through airbrush and pistol, but what he has arrived at in "Section" is less abstract. Natural coal was applied to bring a harmony between the soot resulting from cuts made by laser beams and its surrounding. The extensive use of a laser cutter and a handmade tool for pyrography are additional characteristics of this collection.

Ali Beheshti has held three exhibitions with Dastan's Basement ("Opaque", 2021; "Interpretation", 2019; "Insensible", 2017). His works have appeared in many group exhibitions, including "Encircle the Apple or Shadowlessness" (V-Gallery, Tehran, 2019), "Agog" (V-Café, Tehran, 2016), both curated by Aidin Xankeshipour, and "I draw, therefore I think", a South South Project curated by Jitish Kallat (2021). Works of the artist have appeared in two consecuative iterations of Frieze Seoul (2022-23).