Bahman Mohammadi | "In Celebration": Dastan's Basement

Dastan's Basement is proud to announce the opening of Bahman Mohammadi's solo exhibition, titled
"In Celebration of". The exhibition will be on view from September 18 to October 10, 2026. This exhibition has been realized with the collaboration of Yasi Aeini as Associate Curator and Sam Keshmiri as the artistic director of the Basement.
Bahman Mohammadi's new series took shape through revisiting photographs and memories of parties and gatherings that had been documented during a period away from Tehran. What initially appeared to him as images of collective joy and fleeting moments gradually became connected to an experience of suspension, distance from home, and the instability of life. In this series, parties and revelry appear not merely as subjects, but as conditions for experiencing life more intensely; conditions in which solitude has a strong presence even among a crowd. This shift can also be seen in the visual language of the works: the silence and solitude of the previous series have given way to a density of figures, movement, and the commotion of the crowd. Nevertheless, Mohammadi continues to regard the subject as subordinate to the image and seeks not to confine meaning to a fixed narrative. The figures come from personal photographs, friends' archives, anonymous images, video calls, and, at times, live models, but through the process of painting, with the removal of certain details and the alteration and distortion of forms, they gradually move away from their original contexts. In this series, acrylic has taken on a more prominent role in relation to oil paint, allowing for a faster and freer mode of execution; particularly in the larger works, layering, repeatedly returning to different parts of the image, and freer and at times hurried brushwork have become part of the process of making the work, adding to the movement and restlessness of the paintings' atmosphere. The same logic extends into the exhibition space. The installation is not an attempt to reconstruct the scenes in the paintings or to illustrate a specific narrative; rather, it creates another order around the works. Yellow walls, covered windows, strings of lights that have departed from their usual arrangement, and plaster forms resembling collapsed cakes are all familiar elements introduced into a space in which the customary position and relationships of objects have changed. The gallery space remains recognizable, but the relationship between objects, architecture, and the works moves away from its familiar order. In this way, the paintings and the exhibition space do not stand as explanations of one another, but rather as two independent and simultaneous orders facing one another; two structures that each make use of familiar elements while rearranging the relationships between them.
Bahman Mohammadi (b. 1984, Hamedan, Iran) is a painter who studied Painting at Shahed University and completed an MA in Painting at the University of Tehran. In his work, the human figure and questions surrounding human life-from birth and upbringing to social relations, solitude, evolution, and the relationship between the biological and the social—occupy a central position. Mohammadi's practice moves between figurative painting and research-based projects that test the boundaries between media and between the fields of art and science. His work has involved processes ranging from drawing and installation to painting on photographic paper, exposing and fixing the image, as well as prolonged processes in which wood is left to transform in water. Mohammadi's most recent solo exhibition, "On the Sidelines" (2022), was held at Dastan Art Gallery. His earlier solo exhibitions include "Outside This Empty Room" (2015) at Mah Art Gallery, "Leaving the Atmosphere" (2011) and "Water Sprinkling" (2010) at Homa Art Gallery, and "Mother and Child" (2007) at Aria Art Gallery. His works have also been shown in numerous group exhibitions in Iran and abroad, including "Out of Sight, Beyond Touch" at the Center for Book Arts, New York (2020), and "Field Meeting, Take 6" at Warehouse 47, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai (2019). Mohammadi has also participated, represented by Dastan Gallery, in Asia NOW, Paris (2021), and Art Dubai (2023). In 2004, he was selected in the Realism and Hyperrealism section at Niavaran Cultural Center: in 2006, he received the Special Prize at the Damoonfar Festival; and in 2008, he won the Seventh Biennial of Iranian Contemporary Painting.