Abu Dhabi Art 2024: Group Presentation

Pooya Aryanpour (b. 1971, Tehran, Iran) is an artist, art instructor, and university lecturer based in Tehran. He studied Painting at Azad University of Tehran, where he obtained his M.A. in 1999. He has been an active artist, instructor, and curator over the past three decades.

Since the 2000s, Pooya Aryanpour has made use of mirrors in his sculptures, a practice made popular by artist Monir Farmanfarmaian in the early 1970s. Aryanpour's studies of Qajar's (19th-20th centuries) mirror works have given his work a reflective character. His works can also be considered interactive and conceptual as they fleetingly reflect the image of their viewers. Large size sculptures are covered with tiny mirrors that change color with a shift in lighting, multiplying what they reflect. The plurality of images thus reflected has a spiritual dimension – mirror works are used in places of worship throughout Iran. The multiplicity of images shatters the individual's ego to arrive at a devotional unity. Aryanpour has been created from many materials and in abstract form in widely different sizes.

His work has been extensively exhibited, both in Iran and at international biennials, gallery shows, art fairs, and institutional exhibitions, namely the sculpture biennial in Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (2017), Sophia Contemporary Gallery (London, 2016), and "Gone with the Wind" (Kahrizad Sugar Factory, Tehran, 2022).

Fereydoun Ave (b. 1945, Tehran, Iran) is an influential figure in Iranian contemporary art. He received his BA in Applied Arts for Theatre from Arizona State University (1964), studied Film at New York University (1969), and attended the University of Seven Seas (aka Semester at Sea, 1964). Over the past five decades, he has taken on many roles as an artist, designer, art director, collector, curator, gallerist, and art patron.

The art of Fereydoun Ave is a freehanded engagement with a personal ethos informed by more prominent cultural influences. He ceaselessly reflects on his relationship with age, myths, plants, elements, seasons, moods, and heredity. He takes inspiration from the art of Iran, which tends to use the entire canvas surface, and the Western penchant for minimalism, which leaves large swaths unattended. Fereydoun Ave's joint projects with artists, galleries (including Dastan), and institutions are an integral part of his practice, reflecting his role as a curator, gallerist, and collector.

Mohsen Vaziri Moghaddam (1924 – 2018) is acknowledged as a pioneer of Iranian abstractionism and a leading figure in developing contemporary Iranian art. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. He was also an educator, opening the way for many to-be artists to go beyond the limits of established ways. His "Drawing Method and Painting Guide" (1981) is a standard academic text today.

He is widely recognized for works spanning five decades, from the painterly abstracts of the 1960s to the hard-edged geometry of the sculpted and painted aluminum wall reliefs of his later years. Vaziri's work is characterized by a restless experimentation of form through materials -- deployed in his drawings, sand paintings, opto-kinetic sculptures, and painted aluminum wall reliefs.

During his lifetime, Vaziri was the subject of numerous exhibitions internationally, exhibited extensively at the Venice Biennial, and was collected by MoMA (NY).

Parviz Tanavoli (b. 1937, Tehran, Iran) is a well-known Iranian contemporary artist whose work has gained attention beyond Sculpture – his specialized medium – across a variety of disciplines. His collection of various Iranian artifacts has influenced many of his works and those of his students and researchers. He graduated from the Brera Academy of Milan (1959). He taught sculpting at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (1960) and the Tehran College of Decorative Arts (1961-1963). He was the head of the sculpting department at the University of Tehran, a position he held for 18 years until 1979 when he retired from his teaching duties. Since 1989, he has lived and worked both in Tehran and Vancouver, Canada. His latest solo exhibition, "Oh Nightingale" (2019), was held at the West Vancouver Art Museum.

Parviz Tanavoli is considered a leading figure in "Saqakhaneh," an artistic movement to which many Iranian contemporary artists of the 1970s adhered, using artifacts, designs, and motifs of popular art forms in Iran to speak to contemporary issues. Sculptures of Tanavoli are rife with objects and forms detached from their original context and given a new sense, most famous among these his iconic "Heech" sculptures. Meaning "nothingness" in Persian, "heech" has a cosmological history whose calligraphic form takes its viewers into a meandering world of contemplation. Heech was also a commentary on the evolution of contemporary art in Iran, a response to the growing tendency of visual artists of the 70s to follow trends in Western art by borrowing from their traditions of image-making. Tanavoli's collection of Iranian artifacts is part of his artistic discourse. Through the collection, which has spanned over five decades, he has studied the ways artisans in the Iranian plateau interacted with their environment. He published many books detailing his collections and held a major exhibition at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art ("Parviz Tanavoli and the Lions of Iran," 2017) in which he placed his paintings and sculptures next to rugs, jewelry, locks, water fountains, and designs bearing the mark of a lion. As such, Tanavoli has a central place in the visual history of Iran, to which he has devoted his life and creative input.

Reza Aramesh (b. 1970, Iran) focuses on photography and sculpture. He currently lives and works in London, a city he moved to at the age of 15. He received his MFA from Goldsmiths University, London (1997).

Working in photography, sculpture, video, and performance, Reza Aramesh’s understanding of the history of art, film, and literature is ever-present in his artwork. As a commentary on war reportage, for example, Aramesh takes images of violence appearing in newspapers, online articles, and social media out of their original context to explore the narratives of representation and iconography of subjected body apropos race, class, and sexuality. His work, as such, is a critical engagement with Western art history. 

He represented Iran at the 56th Edition of the Venice Biennale and has exhibited worldwide including the UK, France, China, USA, Dubai, and Iran. He has orchestrated several performances and exhibitions in institutions including the Barbican Centre, Tate Britain, and ICA, London. Other projects have been staged in public squares, nightclubs, and industrial warehouses.

Behjat Sadr (1924, Arak, Iran – 2009, Corsica, France) is among the first female artists and university lecturers of Iran. She graduated in Painting from the University of Tehran (1954). She was an active presence in the international visual art scene beginning in the 1960s. Having studied in Italy, she became interested in abstraction and created her first series of works between 1961 and 1966.

Sadr is known for using a palette knife on canvases that create impressionistic visual rhythm, movement and geometric shapes. Black dominates a major part of her work. She uses blotches to create dynamic patterns. By placing paint directly on the surface of the work and removing paint with a knife countless times, she arrives at the familiar visual structure of her paintings. Sadr was also a photographer and known for her collages.

Mehrdad Mohebali (b. 1960, Tehran, Iran) is a Tehran-based artist. He graduated in Painting from the University of Tehran.

In the works of Mehrdad Mohebali, usually done in large formats, people are executed in a manneristic fashion. His early surreal scenes gave way to portraits of familiar political figures and scenes from art history next to those of the painter and ordinary people. His use of intense colors, lighting, and the poses of his subjects imbues his works with affectations and distortions.

His work has been exhibited in solo and GROUP EXHIBITIONS in Iran and internationally; including at the Lajevardi Foundation in Tehran (2016), the 2015 Venice Biennale, the Salsali Private Museum in Dubai (2012), the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (2004 and 2001), and the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art (2002).

Massoud Arabshahi (1935–2019) is a prominent Iranian painter and sculptor. A leading figure in contemporary art within Iran, Arabshahi's artistic journey commenced during his youth under the guidance of Mahmoud Olya and continued at the School of Fine Arts with mentorship from Shokouh Rezaei. His deep-seated fascination with ancient Iranian art fueled his commitment to designing, researching, and studying objects, myths, and ancient patterns displayed in museums. Throughout the 1940s, Arabshahi actively participated in biennials in Paris and Tehran, as well as numerous group exhibitions, showcasing his artistic prowess. Following a period of concentrated study with professors such as Karim Emami and Hossein Kazemi at the School of Decorative Arts in Tehran, he earned his MA in Architecture in 1968.

Renowned for skillfully blending elements of modern abstract art with the geometric designs in traditional Iranian architecture, Arabshahi's works incorporate abstract lines, textures, and colors. These paintings and sculptures re-imagine well-established patterns, myths, and cultural elements in architectural layouts. Drawing inspiration from Achaemenid and Assyrian art as well as Babylonian inscriptions, Arabshahi's fusion of two-dimensional and three-dimensional patterns places him within the Saqakhaneh School. In 1982, Arabshahi emigrated to France and later to the United States, where he played a role in constructing the Hollywood Hall in Los Angeles. He returned to Iran in 1992 to be involved in several public art projects, including the Mirdamad Expressway, the Soil Mechanics Laboratory, the Islamic Summit Building, and the Bar Association Building.

Farrokh Mahdavi (b. 1970, Tehran, Iran) taught himself painting before studying with master painters and cultivating his passion for the medium. He lives and works in Tehran.

Canvases of Farrokh Mahdavi can be distinguished through unique pinkish hues. His technique aims to defamiliarize the well-known facial elements in a face. The fleshy-pink color of the artist's figures allows the rendering of "a more general depiction of human beings devoid of stereotypes of gender and race."  The faces in Mahdavi’s work are reduced to features like the eyes or the lips, and the rest are covered by thick layers of pink paint, hinting at the emotional world of his characters. He tries to specify forms and conditions without directly depicting anything additional, as he believes it deviates from the main point.

Ali-Akbar Sadeghi (b. 1937, Tehran) is a renowned visual artist who started painting at an early age. He graduated with a BA from the College of Fine Arts of the University of Tehran in 1969. He worked as a graphic designer (posters, book covers, packaging) for many years before joining the Center for the Intellectual Development of Children and Adolescents (CIDCA) in 1971. CIDCA was a thriving center for creative work, and Sadeghi directed his attention to making animations and illustrating books.

Inspired by the folk culture of Iran, his lively, spirited canvases and illustrations are where modern and ancient aesthetics coincide.

In 1991, at the 25th anniversary of CIDCA, Sadeghi was honored for his outstanding book illustration and filmmaking achievements. In 2009, the Iranian Ministry of Culture (Ershad) recognized Sadeghi as "an outstanding cultural figure and contributor to Iranian art and culture.” Ali-Akbar Sadeghi has held 12 solo exhibitions in Iran and worldwide, including "A Retrospective" in the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in 2018. His works have appeared in numerous group exhibitions since 1984. He participated in the Singapore Biennale (2019). Dastan Gallery showed two works of the artist in "Soft Edge of the Blade" at Frieze's No. 9 Cork Street in February 2022 and at all the three exhibitions of “Mosavarnameh” between 2015 and 2018. Drawings and paintings of Sadeghi are held by many art institutions, including the British Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.

Bita Fayyazi (b. 1962, Tehran) lives and works in Tehran. More than a sculptor, an installation artist, or a ceramicist engaged in some mystic relationship with her material, Fayyazi is an artist who works within a more performative and markedly social practice. 

Bita Fayyazi struggled to show her work amidst an atmosphere of stuffy traditionalism, academicism, and the influx of 1990s conceptual art. Beginning in the mid-1990s, her artistic interventions challenged the official definitions of art. The works of Fayyazi are collaborative by nature. She and her artist or non-artist colleagues use whatever material is readily available to wrap and entwine, paint, and cast sculptures made of the fabric of social participation. She reconstitutes the energies of the many toward an uncertain resolution. The final object becomes less important than the process – the collective doing, the love of doing – that preceded its creation. 

Parvaneh Etemadi (b. 1945, Birjand, Iran) is a painter who has worked with various techniques for more than five decades. She is best known for paintings of lifeless nature. Born in Birjand she moved to Tehran with her family when she was six. When her high school teacher, the famous Iranian writer Jalal Al-e Ahmad, saw one of her sketches on the margin of a book, he introduced her to painter Bahman Mohassess. Etemadi is Mohassess's only direct student. She inherited her taste, she says, from Mohassess and her audacity from Al-e Ahmad.

Parvaneh Etemadi has depicted domestic scenes and ordinary objects from everyday life with simple, concise, and sometimes poetic language. In her paintings, form supersedes narration and expression. Etemadi can discover beauty in things – bottles, wooden pestles, and vases – that may not appear beautiful at first glance. From simple colored pencils to hard cement, she makes use of a wide range of tools in her paintings. Her encounter with the canvas reflects her creative and daring spirit. In 1967, Etemadi enrolled in the School of Fine Arts but later withdrew. Less than two decades later, she joined the artists of the Qandriz Hall, where she was the only woman member. Her first exhibition at this venue took place in 1968. Transitioning toward formal experimentalism in the late forties, Etemadi created notable works — simple, abstract paintings of lifeless nature on a rough cement texture. "I turned to draw lifeless nature," she says of this period, "placing the painting in another layer under the figures and motifs, engaging the viewer with a familiar shape while adhering to my accepted principles." In the 1970s, she established "Studio Parvaneh," where she held painting classes. She has influenced many artists, like Avish Khebrezadeh and Sadeq Tirafkan, with her unique teaching style. In the 1980s, she experimented with colored pencils, forming her distinct identity by incorporating repetitive visual elements. In the first decade of the new millennium, she made use of collage techniques. This was her fourth artistic period. "Daughter of Shah Paryan" is one of her series from this period. She also experimented with ceramics in conjunction with calligraphy. In her latest artistic phase, starting with the exhibition "Once Upon a Time" (2004), she drew inspiration from Iranian myths, offering a critical perspective on contemporary society. She is an artist who actively shapes her narrative through every evolutionary phase of her artistic life. She was the subject of a documentary film, "Parvaneh" (2019), by Bahman Kiarostami.