THE SATURN’S SHADOWS
Ali Golestaneh
Opening: Fri.14 jan. 2022 /4_9PM
End: Fri.28 jan. 2022 /4_8PM
Ali Golestaneh (born in 1985)
MA in art research (Tehran University of Art, 2016), art critic, painter, and art history teacher.
Editorial board member of Tandis Biweekly magazine (from 2013 to 2019) and author and translator of articles and essays on the Tajrish Circle website, Golestaneh Monthly magazine, Hengam Monthly magazine, Morvarid Bimonthly magazine, Shiveh quarterly magazine, Form va Naghd Quarterly magazine, and other art sites and publications from 2011 to now.
Books Translator of The Painting of Postmodern Life (with Shokofeh Ghafari, essay collection, Tehran: Kherad-Sorkh, 2018), R. B. Kitai (written by Andrew Lamberth, Tehran: Nazar, 2019), and Marxism and the History of Art (with Shervin Taheri, written by Andrew Hemingway, Tehran: Nazar, under publication).
Summary of teaching records (art history and theory and art criticism): Maziar University (2013 to 2014); Tehran University of Science and Culture (2016 to 2018); Sooreh University (2017 until now); Mes Atelier (2015 to 2016); Bidar School of Art and Literature (2019 until now); Ariush visual art Academy (2021 until now).
Selected group exhibitions:
Student Exhibition of Karaj School of Plastic Arts, Karaj School of Plastic Arts Gallery, Karaj, Iran, 2003.
The 1st Karaj Drawing Annual, Karaj School of Plastic Arts Gallery, Karaj, Iran, 2005.
The 4th Competition of New Generation Festival, Mellat Cinema-Gallery Complex, Tehran, Iran, 2009.
The 1st International Festival of University Students Visual Arts, Saba Museum Gallery, Tehran, Iran, 2010.
The 5th Competition of New Generation Festival, Mellat Cinema-Gallery Complex, Tehran, Iran, 2010.
Awards:
Special Award of Tandis Art Magazine Critiques in the 5th Competition of New Generation Festival, Mellat Cinema-Gallery Complex, Tehran, Iran, 2010.
In creating my painting, I have specifically used two visual patterns: first, the paintings of the Timurid era, from which I have borrowed the changes of scales, isometric perspectives, and, geometric divisions and combinations of multiple spaces. I have tried to rewrite these features in my own way; and second, R. B. Kitaj paintings, especially his works of the 1960s and 70s – not to mention the multitude of other artistic and non-artistic images that have accumulated and shaped our visual memories. Kitaj’s painting, more than the visual aspect (complex and acute compositions, as well as his method of combining geometric and organic spaces, abstract and representative, and displacement of positive and negative areas) by the variety of preparations he uses to talk and tell stories in painting, was inspirational to me. In these pictures, I have used some of the rhetorical strategies of his works, including adaptation, appropriation, quotation, distortion, and paraphrasing (which he himself obtained from various other resources), of course, with interpretation and “distortion” associated with my external conditions.
In this way, I have recounted various narratives: from some stories related to contemporary social life to biographical stories of myself or my friends. Some images do not refer to a special story- they can be considered lost stories their appearances have been abnormally transformed or reduced, so it is difficult to reconnect them with their origin. In addition to that, the image can continue its existence only when it finally loses its origin and goes to its audience in a disguised form outside the frame.
Ali Golestaneh. January 2022.