• Zaal Art Gallery x Simine Paris

    10 - 15 December 2024
  • Zaal Art Gallery and Simine Paris are collaboratively hosting a group exhibition that showcases works by sixteen prominent Iranian artists. The exhibition opens on December 10th and runs through December 15th, 2024, at 24 Rue de Penthièvre, 75008 Paris. Participating artists include Fereydoun Ave (b. 1945), Raana Farnoud (b. 1953), Mehrdad Mohebali (b. 1960), Mehran Mohajer (b. 1964), Farrokh Mahdavi (b. 1970), Arash Hanaei (b. 1978), Baktash Sarang (b. 1981), Maryam Khosrovani (b. 1981), Mamali Shafahi (b. 1982), Sepand Danesh (b. 1984), Peybak (b. 1984), Kiarash Alimi (b. 1985), Bahareh Navabi (b. 1985), Golnaz Payani (b. 1986), Hadi Alijani (b. 1987), and Dana Jafari (b. 1992). These artists navigate between Iran and the global art scene, offering works that reflect the richness and complexity of contemporary Iranian art.
  • Fereydoun Ave (b. 1945, Tehran, Iran) is an influential figure in Iranian contemporary art. He received his BA in Applied...

    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.

  • Raana Farnoud (b. 1953, Mashhad, Iran) is a painter of great distinction, living and working in Tehran. She received her...
    Raana Farnoud (b. 1953, Mashhad, Iran) is a painter of great distinction, living and working in Tehran. She received her BA in English from Tehran’s Advanced School of Translation (1975) and her Diploma in Painting from the Girls’ School of Fine Arts (1971).
    Raana Farnoud is an artist known for her versatile exploration of abstract and figurative art. She has deliberately transitioned between abstraction and figuration throughout her career, engendering a visual language uniquely her own. Her figurative work stands out both in her own body of work and among other contemporary Iranian artists. Farnoud's figurative paintings do not adhere to a representational ethos. Instead, they transcend the boundaries of time and place, aiming to create a world that goes beyond mimicry. She delves into the psyche of her characters with calm and precision, portraying internal tensions and affinities over external meanings and appearances of people and objects. 
    Farnoud held her first solo exhibition in 1989 at Seyhoun Art Gallery. Since then she has taken her work to numerous venues around the world. Her solo exhibitions over the past two decades were: Emkan Gallery (Tehran, 2018); Emkan Gallery (Tehran, 2016); Etemad Gallery (Tehran, 2014); Etemad Gallery (Tehran, 2010); Golestan Gallery (Tehran, 2003); Le Rayon Vert Gallery (Nantes, France, 2000-2001); Aria Gallery (Tehran, 2000). Her work has also appeared in GROUP EXHIBITIONS, art fairs, and expos. These include “Image of Self” (O Gallery, Tehran, 2016); Total Art at the Courtyard (Dubai, UAE, 2015); Art Dubai (Dubai, UAE, 2011); Art London (London, 2007); “A Breeze from the Gardens of Persia, New Art from Iran” (Meridian International Center, traveling exhibition, USA 2003-2001); International Art Expo (New York, 2000); 9th Triennial of Lalit Kala Academy (New Delhi, India 1997); China Art Expo (Peking, China 1997); Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (Tehran, 1990). As one of the founding members of the DENA collective, she participated in major events: Ludwig Museum (Koblenz, Germany, 2005); Liu-Haisu Art Museum (Shanghai, China, 2004); Hubei Art Museum (Wuhan, China, 2003); Yan-Huang Art Museum (Beijing, China, 2003); Kokkola Museum (Kokkola, Finland, 2003); The Parliament building of the European Union (Brussels, Belgium, 2003); Vigado Gallery (Budapest, Hungary, 2002); United Nations building (Geneva, Switzerland, 2002).
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  • Mehrdad Mohebali (b. 1960, Tehran, Iran) is a Tehran-based artist. He graduated in Painting from the University of Tehran. In...

    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).

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  • Mehran Mohajer (b. 1964, Tehran, Iran) is an artist, teacher, writer, and translator living and working in Tehran. He holds...

    Mehran Mohajer (b. 1964, Tehran, Iran) is an artist, teacher, writer, and translator living and working in Tehran. He holds a BA in Photography (1990) and an MA in General Linguistics (1994) from the University of Tehran. A faculty member at his alma mater, he has been teaching in various academic institutions for the past three decades. He has authored several books on literary criticism and photography. His articles on photography have appeared, among other places, in Herfeh: Honarmand magazine. 

    Mehran Mohajer is captivated by the relationship between the camera and the act of seeing. The locus of our visual attention is borne by a field interposed by obstructions, byroads, flank views, and blurs. Mohajer's camera makes sure that his viewer is engaged with that which is surpassed in the act of seeing. What intrudes in his frames can be a pair of fingers ("Between and Non-Between", 2017), a fist, a sheet of glass ("The Present Past", 2017), letters of the alphabet, or the misty blur from a slow exposure ("Air of the Land", 2019). Whatever the obstructions, the photographer brings an embodied presence to the frames of his photograph. Some of his frames point to "no-thing" ("Scaffolding", 2021). He pays attention to the dynamics of the language of the camera and challenges its boundaries. "The Syntax of Effacement"(+2 Gallery, 2024) continues with his interest in the linguistics of the photographic image – what it hides in the process of revealing.

  • Farrokh Mahdavi, Overview

    Farrokh Mahdavi

    Overview

    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.

  • Arash Hanaei (b. 1978, Tehran, Iran) is a visual artist who lives and works in Paris, France. He holds a...
    Arash Hanaei (b. 1978, Tehran, Iran) is a visual artist who lives and works in Paris, France. He holds a BA in Photography from Azad University of Art (2002). Following a series of photography exhibitions, Hanaei's practice makes use of other media to deliver a message, set up a stage, or highlight issues he finds important.
    Arash Hanaei uses visual arts outfits to address his socio-political concerns. His different series is a commentary on a kaleidoscope of issues: terrorism vs. the war on terror, dislocation, and belonging, urban vs. suburban spaces, the impact of the digital age on social interaction, the influence of market systems and commercial culture, and, since his move to France in 2015, conditions "influenced by emergency states, transitory situations, and destinies." In "Capital" (2008-2015) he simplifies photographic scenes in the city of Tehran to a "readable" text. In "Cyclothymia of a Land" (2015-2017) urbanity is eclipsed by a more urgent question: "Can we still grasp the city as a permanent place of residence and what are the instabilities of this description?" In "Pop-up Clouds" (2019), a series of mixed media installations with audio, video, and digital prints, the visitor is transported into a psycho-geographic setting akin to pop-up windows on a computer screen.
  • Baktash Sarang Javanbakht (b. 1981, Tehran, Iran) is an interdisciplinary artist who lives and works between Paris and Tehran. He...

    Baktash Sarang Javanbakht (b. 1981, Tehran, Iran) is an interdisciplinary artist who lives and works between Paris and Tehran. He holds a B.A. in painting from Azad University, Tehran, Iran (2005); a D.N.S.E.P in Metal Sculpture from Haute Écoles des Arts du Rhin, HEAR (ESADS), Strasbourg, France (2012); and an M.A. from Université Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, France (2015).

    Incorporating drawing and installation, Baktash Sarang confronts the complexities of humanity and contemporary life through a somber tone. His works often depict oppressed and trapped figures in relation to intricate, enclosed structures. With a bitterly futuristic perspective, he employs sarcasm to convey his subjective visions of utopia and dystopia.

    Baktash Sarang has held several solo exhibitions in galleries in Iran and abroad, including AB-ANBAR Gallery, Tehran, Iran (2018); Galerie Jean-François Kaiser, Strasbourg, France (2016); Araan Gallery, Tehran, Iran (2013, 2014); AB Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland (2012); and Azad Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran (2004, 2007, 2009). He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions worldwide, including the International Architecture Biennale di Venezia (2018).

  • Maryam Khosrovani (b. 1981, Tehran, Iran) is a conceptual artist and teacher who lives between Paris and New York. She...
    Maryam Khosrovani (b. 1981, Tehran, Iran) is a conceptual artist and teacher who lives between Paris and New York. She holds a B.A. in graphic design from Art & Architecture University, Tehran (2007) and an M.A. in graphic design & art direction from ESAG Penninghen School, Paris (2011).
    Maryam’s practice includes research-based projects through mixed media and installation. She incorporates a wide range of materials like plaster, fabric, wood, and pencil in physical media alongside her engagement with digital mediums of photography and video. Inspired by her own life, which is shaped by moving between different cultures and geographies, she chooses her themes, all of which share a light and tender aesthetic, tending toward colorlessness.
    Khosrovani has held her solo exhibition “Incubus, Succubus, Pendulus: The Secret Rules of Gravity” at Aun Gallery, Tehran, Iran (2012), and has participated in several group exhibitions at venues such as Elga Wimmer and Rogue Space Chelsea in New York (2016-2021), Hamzianpour & Kia Gallery in Los Angeles (2022), and La Nuit Blanche in Paris (2023-2024).
  • Mamali Shafahi (B.1982, lives in Paris-Tehran) His immersive and mixed-media installations include sound and light and deliver a visual feast...

    Mamali Shafahi (B.1982, lives in Paris-Tehran) His immersive and mixed-media installations include sound and light and deliver a visual feast adorned with enigmatic chimeras that defy categorisation. His works serve as mirrors reflecting the complexities of cultural diversity and identity, shattering stereotypes and inviting viewers to embrace the richness that lies beneath the surface. They provide a getaway to the realms of fantasy while paying tribute to his Iranian heritage. Within a mesmerising environment of optical illusions, viewers are transported beyond their everyday experience into a state of equilibrium between the magical and the terrible, fantasy and horror.As part of “Daddy Sperm”, he worked on an experimental docu-fiction film, Nature Morte, involving his parents. This film was the backbone of an installation at City Princes/ses at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris in 2019. His VR project, nerd_funk, with Ali Eslami, have been featured at Het nieuwe instituut, Rotterdam, the Vancouver Biennale and IDFA film. It also won the Golden Calf award for Best interactive film at the Netherlands Film Festival.

    • Mamali Shafahi, Untiled from "Heirloom Velvet" series, 2024
      Mamali Shafahi, Untiled from "Heirloom Velvet" series, 2024
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  • Sepand Danesh (b. 1984, Tehran, Iran) is a graduate of École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he studied...
    ©Guillaume ARGENTO

    Sepand Danesh (b. 1984, Tehran, Iran) is a graduate of École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he studied under Giuseppe Penone and Philippe Cognée. 

    Works of Sepand Danesh stand at the crossroad of art and technology. He looks at the world as if through a pixelated filter – elements and figures in his paintings are made of squares/cubes in a Euclidian geometry of surfaces. These paintings start in a corner of an empty space with no ceiling or floor. Suspended between perpendicular lines is a vertical shelf where various elements and figures make a show. He uses drawing, painting and workshops to burst ideas about the dynamic of the Hub. His paintings represent optical illusion of inside corner (as the metaphor of impediment) without floor or ceiling which shelter his intimate and also the world's wider memory.

  • Peybak (Peyman Barabadi and Babak Alebrahim Dehkordi, both b. 1984, Tehran, Iran) is the acronym of two artists working together...
    Peybak (Peyman Barabadi and Babak Alebrahim Dehkordi, both b. 1984, Tehran, Iran) is the acronym of two artists working together as a "unified duo" since December 20, 2001. 
    Peybak is well-known for depicting imaginative creatures in a dystopian reverse void. The duo works on every piece together, each taking on different parts until they both declare it finished. Persian poetry, mythology, and miniature painting inspire Peybak's works. 
  • Kiarash Alimi (b. 1985, Tehran) is an Iranian visual artist, writer, and former editor-in-chief of 'Zamineh', a free online art...
    Kiarash Alimi (b. 1985, Tehran) is an Iranian visual artist, writer, and former editor-in-chief of "Zamineh", a free online art magazine and content viewing platform, currently living and working in Tehran. He studied Painting at Tehran School of Visual Arts (2002).
    Paintings of Kiarash Alimi reduce forms to an extreme with a fluid handling of color and an approach that foregrounds his explorations in painting as "a mental activity" and thinking-through-doing. His body of works is an invitation to "tamāšā", a persian word that underlines the act of prolonged observation.
     
  • Bahareh Navabi (b. 1985, Tehran, Iran) received her BA and MFA from Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France. She...

    Bahareh Navabi (b. 1985, Tehran, Iran) received her BA and MFA from Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France. She has also studied with Farideh Lashai, the renowned Iranian painter.

    Navabi's works mix hyperrealistic portrait and figure drawings with an abstract form. Her practice centers on a woman's body and explores the potential of her picture planes. Each element in her work balances dark versus light tonalities and empty spaces against detailed drawings. Most consist of several layers of tracing paper stacked on each other

  • Golnaz Payani is a Franco-Iranian multidisciplinary artist born in Tehran in 1986. After obtaining her Bachelor's degree in Painting from...
    ©Ashkan Norouzkhani
    Golnaz Payani is a Franco-Iranian multidisciplinary artist born in Tehran in 1986. After obtaining her Bachelor's degree in Painting from the Faculty of Art and Architecture in Tehran, she continued her artistic studies at the School of Art in Clermont-Ferrand, where she earned her DNSEP (Master's; National Higher Diploma in Plastic Expression) in 2013. Her open artistic practice explores various mediums such as film, video, fabric works, installation, performance, and poetry. She regularly showcases her work in solo and group exhibitions in France and abroad. Her artwork is represented by the Praz-Delavallade gallery in Paris and Los Angeles.
  • Hadi Alijani (b. 1987, Sari, Iran) is a visual artist based in Tehran. He has an MA in Education from...
    Hadi Alijani (b. 1987, Sari, Iran) is a visual artist based in Tehran. He has an MA in Education from Shahed University (Tehran, 2012).
    The works of Hadi Alijani are inspired by the visual tradition of Iran, painting in particular, while constituting a contemporary expression of its aesthetics. His work is a reflection, a re-reading of Iran's culture and art, a mesmerizing blend of the painter's inner world and Iranian visual history. He believes that our present identity is intricately tied to the past. His work is particularly inspired by the visual tradition of the Qajar era (1789-1925) as a turning point in Iran's history in its decisive encounter with the West. 
    Hadi Alijani has held several solo exhibitions, including "Prospect 2" at Parallel Circuit in Tehran, Iran, in 2023, "History of Fantasy: Part II" at Southway Studio in Marseille, France, in 2023, "In Search of Lost Space" at Southway Studio in Marseille, France, in 2022, and "In Search of Lost Space" at Assar Gallery in Tehran, Iran, in 2021, among others. He has also participated in various group exhibitions, such as "Farsi & The Farsi Ghoul" at Delgosha Gallery in Tehran, Iran, in 2021, "Birds" at Soo Contemporary in Tehran, Iran, in 2021, and "COMPATIBILITY" at Novel Gallery in Hamadan, Iran, in 2020, showcasing his work in different international and local art spaces.
  • Dana Jafari (b. 1992, Tehran, Iran) is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Tehran. She graduated with a BA...

    Dana Jafari (b. 1992, Tehran, Iran) is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Tehran. She graduated with a BA in Sculpture from Tehran’s University of Art in 2018.

    Her artistic career is quite entangled in itself/ is interwoven. Each of her series is a blueprint and a foundation that shapes the next series of work. This is also reflected in the series’ names ("The Bruised Wall of Valley,” “Inside the Wall,” and "In Front of the Back Wall"). Dana Jafari's works, influenced by her academic background in sculpture, constantly flow between three-dimensional and flat forms; her drawings and paintings expand the surface and frame in space, and her sculptures illustrate a two-dimensional surface.

    She had her first solo, “The Bruised Wall of Valley,” at O Gallery, Tehran, in 2019. Her work has also been a part of the group show “In-Between,” exhibited at Niavaran Cultural Center, Tehran, in 2016.