ART CITIES:Tehran – MASS INDIVIDUALISM A Form of Multitude
The group exhibition “MASS INDIVIDUALISM: A Form of Multitude”, examines the shifts occurring between public and private space through artworks that explore architecture’s role in facilitating such transformations. The exhibition also comments upon the increasing difficulties individuals are faced with in identifying and perceiving their relationship to each other and to collective (often invisible) social forms
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Ab/Anbar Archive
At the heart of “MASS INDIVIDUALISM: A Form of Multitude” is a view that in the modern world, through the politics of the nation-state, a new realm arises, “a curiously hybrid realm” called “society,” where private enters the public realm, but without an orientation towards res publica, “the public thing,” or public interest. The participating artists are: Siah Armajani, Shahab Fotouhi, Babak Golkar, Shirazeh Houshiary, Y.Z Kami, Avish Khebrehzadeh, Arash Mozafari, Timo Nasseri and Newsha Tavakolian. Siah Armajani embodies humanistic, democratic and populist ideals that have defined his multifaceted vision for over 40 years that culminated in the creation of his own tomb. Avish Khebrehzadeh brings together action and speech in quest for a web of relationships among individuals. In this web, however, there is no audience within the space and the actions are voiceless. Babak Golkar, on the other hand, takes us through the introduction of form in urbanism and the concept of multitude and mass ornamentalism of individuals in the modern era. This then proceeds into a discourse centered on technological revolution through an examining of the effect of technology on mass production and, thus, its effect on the economies of space and participatory role of individuals in it as explored through Timo Nasseri and Shahab Fotouhi/Arash Mozafari’s redefinitions of muqarnas (ornamental vaulting) as parametric forms. Technology and its fascination with the production of form brings us to our fourth theme: interior urbanism, with Golkar’s furniture seen as a sign of merged interior and exterior spaces and thus interwoven private and public domains. This theme is supported by Shirazeh Houshiary and Newsha Tavakolian’s take on capsular modes of living, hinting at the dawn of capsular civilizations, an urban phenomenon defining new privatized modes of public life. Finally, Y.Z Kami’s individual portraits painted on the ruins of a giant brick wall recalls the quest for immortality of the ancient Fayum mummy portraits, as well as Rem Koolhaas’s popular definition of modern living conditions, which have turned us all into “voluntary prisoners of architecture”.
Info: Curator: Azadeh Zaferani, Ab/Anbar, No.2 Roshanmanesh alley, Khaghani St., Enghelab St., Darvazeh Dolat, Tehran, Duration: 15/4-27/5/16, Days & Hours: Sun-Fri 12:00-20:00, www.ab-anbar.com
