Criticism of “Reminiscence” and “Equation” exhibitions
By Mahmoud Maktabi | Asia newspaper, No. 708, February 16, 2016.
The reason how I was falling down from my house roof in to the canal, was gravity which was more powerful than my authority (Bas Jan Ader, Avalanche, 1971).
These days writing about contemporary artist and his works are so hard and complicated, also we cannot judge what he is doing just by one of his work. Foad Alijani is a young artist that maybe we don’t see his work much more, but his two exhibitions show that we have to pay attention to his work more deeply. He knows the rules of this kind of art and because of this he has neat works, also all of them are away from exaggeration.
Alijani in two exhibition; “Reminiscence” and “Equation” invite us to the environment witch its power of attention is more than our power. In the words of Jan Ader, due to its simplicity we fall within this space.
Common aspects of these two exhibitions are creating atmosphere, using lights and audience participation. In both exhibitions, audience are not faced with different art work, they are faced with atmosphere and inner universality.
In “Reminiscence” exhibition artist tries to evoke audience’s emotions, but the important point is that we are not faced with predetermined story. In other word artist instead of storytelling for his audiences, exposes a memory or his personal feelings to them. Signs have particular relationships together, so each of the audience can have different concepts. Although the atmosphere is completely changed, we can see the simplicity in “Equation’s” exhibition, too. In “Equation’s” exhibition, in contrast with “Reminiscence” exhibition, which artist pays attention to emotions, blue lights force us to think. In this exhibition beside the abstract wooden structures, lights and shadows create exhibition’s universality. There is no specific sign such as umbrella, instead something new added to the atmosphere, which is “Human-Object”. Although in “Reminiscence” exhibition the presence of the artist is not ineffective, in “Equation’s” exhibition we face with different presence of artist, the presence witch body and form are discussed. Artist shapes space by using hostess, but we shouldn’t take her rehearsed behavior seriously. In “Equation” we are facing with complicated image which shows Foad Alijani’s mental complexity more than performance. Audience can see one woman and one man’s motions in a room and at the same time they can watch a movie on the wall based on woman and man’s motions, these images are exactly like two mirrors with repeat images to infinity. The image of complex labyrinth.
Foad Alijani could be more effective by escaping from inducing concept and message to the audience and this is a good point of his first step in new arena. These two exhibitions are so pleasant like shorts and effective books, so if we put them in a context of technical and executive rules, they lost their pleasure.
