Mahmoud Bakhshi

8/3/2019 Mahmoud Bakhshi

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Air Pollution of IRAN2004-2006

-Air Pollution of Iran (8 flags, 240x120x5cm each)-Anonymous Martyrs (3 cameras)-Military service under the flag (single-channel video in peep-hole, 5min loop)

Air Pollution of Iran addresses the mass execution of thousands ofpolitical prisoners by the government of the Islamic Republic, whichtook place over a short period of a few days in 1988 shortly beforethe end of the Iran-Iraq war. Few are aware of them, no one is allowedto talk about them or remember them. During my first and only visit tothe burial site, I was confronted by the shock of the flat, anonymousground (no names, no gravestones) scattered only with flowers brought byfamilies in remembrance of their lost ones. They victims are buried in amassive hole dug in the middle of nowhere and filled with corpses.

Following that I started a project entitled: Air Pollution of Iran whichis a series comprising of three works:The first - Air Pollution of Iran - is a series of eight found andframed national flags of Iran. The grimy flag is a rather directallegory of the dirty reality we actually live in, even if we do not seeit, much like the undeniable reality of the air pollution of Tehran. Theair-soiled flags of Tehran now seem to me to preserve the inherent dirtwhich is not only from pollution but goes deep into the dirty realityunderneath.

The second - Anonymous Martyr - comprises of three slide viewerssouvenirs obtained from holy pigrimmage sites like Mecca and remodelledwith slides representing a ritualistic re-enactment of a funeralservice for the executed political prisoners. Bodies were wrapped in thenational flag and placed in large dug holes akin to thr mass grave andphotographed. The images replaced those inside the slide viewers whichoriginally hold images of holy sites.The third - Military Service under Flag - is a single channel videoapproximately 6 minutes long displayed through a peep hole. The video isa close up view of my mouth eating a watermelon and smoking a cigarettewith a national flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the background.I put myself in the place of a soldier in the military who serves underthe flag albeit what I do is nonsense.


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Original slide in cameras: pictures of holy places Slide shown at the exhibition: anonymous martyrs

Anonymous martyrs Military service under the flag (video in peep-hole)


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Jesus2007

Single-channel video, silent, running time; 10 minutes and 14 seconds.

Jesus is a video assemblage of 8000 digital photographs of Seoulsuperimposed by a text. The work animates still images of red neon

Christian crosses aloft buildings and along the Korean urban skylinerecorded at different times of day, across various shutter speeds and

lights. The changing light brings the red neon lights in and out ofemphasis. The project was made during a residency in Seoul when the

artist became intensely aware of the domineering presence of the symbol

across and against the urban landscape. The work explores religiousiconography as advertising in an urban dimension and references parallel

iconographic containments and regulatory directorials within contemporaryIranian narrative. Email explorations of the topic of the Korean neon

Christian cross by the artist and the residency director appear across thework which makes the video into a kind of visual email.

The Christian cross began to preside as an urban feature in the aftermath

of WWII and the Korean War through Christian missionary activities inSouth Korea where a considerable proportion of the population converted

to Christianity. By association the neon icons embody American/missionary

presence.


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Solo Show (Namayeshgah-e-Enferadi)Performance2007

As a play on words the Persian term enferadi meaning solo/solitary isused here to reference solo show-solitary confinement.The artist enters the gallery a few minutes after the opening hour, ob-

structs the entrance locks himself in alone and out of sight and stayssolitary and out of view for the duration of the one week show. The au-dience follow the show through the mediation of digital images uploadeddaily by the artist on his website.


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Untitle(from:Rose Garden)2008


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Untitled (From: Rose Garden)2008

Untitled (From: Rose Garden) is a collection of sixty-four photographic images of variousflowers in different colours photographed against a black background on postcards. The name ofthe flower, date and place of photography are printed beside the image. A pair of flowers were

photographed each night over a period of four months. The postcards imitate commercial postcards.

The work is a form of visual diary. Floral images stand in as substitutes for the unrecorded realfeelings, a parody, both an escape and an avoidance of the dreadful reality of the contemporarycondition and its social and political narratives. It is a comment on a general conditioning toavoid or conceal the ugly realities, a conditioning both wrought by psychological defenses aswell as official controls. The image of the beautiful flower instead becomes the delightful dailydose of beauty.


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Tulips Rise from the Blood of the Nation YouthIndustrial Revolution Series

2008Group of 8 sculptures in Neon, Tinplate, Wood, Plastick, Electric engine

135 X 35 X 30 cm each sculptures


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Tulips riseis a famous song for ConstitutionalRevolution (Mashrote Revollution) in Iran at 1908.The song became so famous after Islamic revolutionespecially during the 8years war between Iran andIraq (1980-1988). Tulips became a symbol for therevolution, similar to the sign; Allah has beenused in the middle of Islamic Republic of Irans

flag. There has neon tulips installed on tinplatepedestals referring to the monuments which one cansee in numerous public places such as town squares inIran. The bottoms emplaced on pedestals enable theviewers to make the tulips turn as well as change thedirection and speed of turning!


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Onion GrinderIndustrial Revolution Series

2008Wood, Silver, Tinplate, Electric Engine

113.41.41 cm. each sculpture


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Onion Grinder is literally an everyday onion

grinder mounted an a pedestal base of tinplate. It has an external multi-speed power

switch attached to the base that allows theviewer manipulation of the action and speed

and rotational direction of the grinder blade.

The six-leaved silver blade is in the form ofthe official emblem of the Iranian republic as

it appears on the flag, spelling Allah, hereexpanded into 3-dimensions. The sculpture is

accompanied by an instruction manual.


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Mother of Nation

Industrial Revolution Series

2008-2009


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Mother of Nation is a composite tinplate and metal

sculpture of part-pyramidal form surmounted by ameat grinder. With the turn of the handle, the

mechanically-operated meat grinder sucks up a darkoily fluid mixture from a lower reservoir through a

small pipe, pushes it through a pacifier and ejectsit to squirt down the front of the stepped tin skirt

structure. The solitary, manipulated, abused, soiled,injured, exposed and only partially intact monument

is an allegory of the nurturing/controlling mother(with her single-sided thin skirt of sheet tin) and

the dependency relationship with natural reserves in

the context of the national/global politico-economic

dimensions of fuel energies.


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Sunsets2010

Sunsets is an installation of Tinplate tubes and fourty loudspeakers forming a structure of 4 cubic metres?? creating a free-

standing three-dimensional organ-like structure with a rotating turntable of speakers underneath. The speakers broacast different

Quranic chapters simulateneously, orchestrating a hybrid reading of the Quran. By rotating the speaker turntable the spectator canshift the emphasis and control the soundscape as the speakers move underneath different tubes of the organ above.

As a monument, the piece sits somewhere between a toy and portable religious medium for prayer, revealing sounds of daily life as

perceived in a religious country. Furthermore, avoiding direct referenc, it takes an oblique position in relation to the politicallandscape where symbols and motives are overloaded with meaning and official status.

As each speaker in the installation emits a different chapter of Quran and visitors are invited to rotate the speakers which are

installed on a circular disc as a merry-go-around to form various sonic experiences. With this interactive element, the artistplayfully allows unpredictable and flexible alternative readings in opposition to rigid interpretation. These Quranic chapters are

recited before each prayer and punblicly broadcast before each call to prayer across the cities as well as during Moslem religiousceremonies.

The artist recycles and distorts religious (and in other instances nationalistic) popular motifs.


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Bahman Cinema

2010

4 Channel Video,Cartons of Cigarettes, 46.32.30 CM, Cardboard


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Bahman Cinema is an installation piece addressing the

interrelation between culture and the circumstanceswithin the social context. The piece is including four

empty carton cigarettes put up on the wall. There is asingle-channel video has been shown in each box, with

tens of miniature chairs in front, as one would findhimself looking down on a small-scale cinema.

Bahman is the eleventh month in the solar calendar,and the victory month of Islamic Republic of Iran

Revolution in 1979. In one hand it is referring toBahamn Cigarette, a quite popular Iranian cigarette

among worker class people and also there is a real

Bahman Cinema in Enghelab (revolution) square, rightin the midtown, Tehran. This area has been facing many

protests before and after the Islamic revolution.Connecting these metaphoric factors turn up in the

videos come along by a revolutionary song.Videos - actually the main parts of the piece- are

short (40sec.-1.55min) documentaries of the streetsbetween Tehran University and Revolution square.

Bearing in mind this area is one of the busiest places

in Tehran for the protests, specially the latest oneafter the presidential election, this video recorded

at night time shows a very quiet angle in comparison.These bare streets are hinting the viewer how this busy

area became considerably tranquil. Sadness, emptiness,and hopelessness are all over the images fulfilled by

the leading song.Each video has been named after a part of the song

hearing all through, based on a true story composedto a martyr warier Mohammad Jahan Ara during Iran-

Iraq war (1980-1988). He was one the most important

elements in liberating Khoram-Shahr city which had beenoccupied by Iraqis for a while. Mammad had been killed

before the city was completely sat free and the song isretelling the story to his comrades as a recital of an

elegy. Mammad you were not around to see, The city isliberated

The selected parts of the song are comparing thatatmosphere by Irans at the present time. One or two

phrase is getting repeated on and on to remind thatthe same stories are repeating themselves during the

time. It seems that artist sharing this experience with

all Jahan Aras comrades which symbolically stand forprotesters of today Iran.

Your comrades bloodYou are gone and comrades will follow you

All my hopes are vanishedAh, such a pity it is


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Mahmoud Bakhshi