Falsche Illusionen (False Illusions) at E-Werk Freiburg

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Exhibition curated by Nicoletta Torcelli at E-Werk Freiburg (13. 04. – 12. 05. 2013)
Artists: Samira Eskandarfar, Teheran / Shahram Entekhabi, Berlin / Parastou Forouhar, Offenbach / Hamid Ghodratmand, Freiburg/ Asoo Khanmohammadi, Teheran and Vienna

“Do false illusions exist? Actually they don’t. An İllusion is something false anyway: a self-deception. We are creating illusions to gloss over our lifes. And we have illusions about unknown things. We are searching for the known in the unknown, we are fading out aspects, we are developing wrong imaginations.”

“Art is able to emerge a space in between: we can illusionize in a conscious way. The title of the exhibition is playing with this ambiguity and with the double negation. If an illusion is a self-deception, a false illusion could be a the right imagination then. Art is conciliating senseful comments with the usage of illusions.” (Nicoletta Torcelli)

E-Werk is showing five positions from artist born in Iran. Sharam Entekhabi created an irritating Video. A face covered with eyes is staring at us. It is the staring of the other reacting as irretated on us as we do on him or her. In Samira Eskandarfars Video a young woman is breathing under a plastic bag. She is sitting in a fish factory. Lively music contradicts the depressive scene. Parastou Forouhar is working with the subject “Ornaments and violence”. She created beautiful ornamental pictures, that are hiding terrifying scenes in their pretty shapes and colours. The Time of the butterflies include scenes of violence in current Iran inclusive the murder of Forouhar’s mother Parwaneh, who’s name means butterfly. Hamid Ghotratmand’s sculptures show items of daily use transformed by contradicting details. He created a serial of cakes made of wood painted with oilcolors. The alluring cakes are poisened with quotations of the hard realities of life: Hunger, Bay Guantanamo, war and exile is written on the top in glossy letters. Asoo Khanmohammadi uses Photography to show the not outspoken. On her Photo serial “Absent” she is showing relicts of woman burning themselves. You see the ashes on the wall. A coat on the hook, orphaned furniture pieces.

Parastou Forouhar stayed as artist in residence six month in Istanbul 2007. A program financed by the Berlin Senate. After many years in Germany those were her first month staying so close to her homeland Iran. She was planning to write a book about the murder of her parents.  “The country, where my parents were murdered” got published in German 2011. The video shows a talk with Parstou Forouhar in Istanbul 2007:

Video about the exhibition from arte journal: http://videos.arte.tv/de/videos/falsche-illusionen-5-iranische-positionen–7455156.html