Allahyar Najafi

Opening on 21st April 2023
On view until 12th May 2023

Sumerians called it Eridu, to which access was forbidden. The later interpretation of “Garden of Eden” is a reference to its inception and the absence of an end. Whatever we have and have known and all that we will have and know are between the two concepts we have created or remembered; beginning and end, life and death, Eternity without a beginning or an end, and Eden and absence.
All beings are placed on an axis whose beginning is Eden, and its end is absence, an axis that can be imagined as a circle where the outset and ending points are the same.
There is no beginning, end, up or down, inside or outside; a before and after cannot be imagined. It is a beat, a decline on one side while it rises from the other.
Isn’t clinging to symbols to understand the essence the result of failure in expression? In our common speech, we always arrive from particles to the whole, and language always refers us to details. And in Eden, details are important and visible. And in the same context, the first of Men and the first of Women, next to the first tree, each with their own characteristics, are signs that consist of many parts, somewhere between Eden and nothingness.
But this story is a mystery, an idea, a symbol, and the interpreter is the sign’s creator and determines its interpretation. The Tree of Knowledge is a sign, Adam is a symbol, and Eve is a mystery. Symbols are all that is and will be; they are timeless objects, and deciphering entails Time and its interpreters, each with its own decoder.
Ultimately, these and other topics were the main ideas and the basis of my interpretation of Eden/Absence.
The role of “Time” in completing this collection is perhaps a more obvious sign of my understanding of it as a kind of consumer material and the observable effect of the changing quality of Time on the collection. The accidentals and emphasis on their importance through repetition – to the point that it carries part of the burden of concept and technique – is nature’s unconscious effect, which is meaningless without the primary substance of Time.
And the technique used in the works may be explained by the saying that: what “is” does not arise from what “is not.”
Allahyar Najafi

Opening on 24th February 2023
On View until 17th March 2023

Artists:
Farhad Ahrarnia, Shaqayeq Ahmadian, Sara Assareh, Samira Eskandarfar, Mohamad Eskandari, Ebrahim Eskandari, Reihaneh Afzalian, Sanahin Babajanians, Fatemeh Bahman Siyahmard, Dadbeh Bassir,Parisa Taghipour, Sara Tavana, Manijeh Hejazi, Parisa Hejazi, Sara Hosseini, Zari Hosseini, Hamid Hemayatian, Anahita Darabbeigi, Nasim Davari, Raoof Dashti, Navid Salajegheh, Sara Soleimani Qashqayi,Amir Hossein Shahnazi, Hamed Sahihi, Nastaran Safaei, Bahar Samadi, Kiarang Alaei, Maryam Farzadian, Mayram Farshad, Mehdi Farhadian, Naghmeh Ghassemlou, Amirali Ghasemi, Narges Mohamadian, Shirin Mellatgohar,Koosha Moossavi, Parsoua Mahtash, Elmira Mirmiran, Allahyar Najafi, Siamak Nasr, Nazgol Nayeri, Leila Nouraei, Mohammad Hamzeh, Marjan Hoshiar.

Don’t be sad, my land!
I have planted flower seeds in your wounds
One day there will be flower everywhere…
Alireza Roushan

For Women, For Life, For Freedom

It is through artistic creations that Iran reveals her true self and this many believe constitutes her most precious legacy. The Persian legacy has endured many turbulences of history. No historical shock has been able to break the chain. There were interruptions, yet they always permitted even provoked a resumption of creativity; ideas, styles, techniques forcefully imposed, were accepted and integrated in to our existing practice. The Iranian spirit is a tenacious one, we can endure extremes and at the same time our thousands of years of history teaches us to remain optimistic and persistent.
Throughout the last forty-four years of our perpetual revolution, the visual artists have had to carve their independence; in the first years the universities were purged through the so-called Cultural Revolution and artists and professors had to look for other jobs or start private classes. Many left the country. Although it was a difficult struggle, but they succeeded in achieving autonomy from a Regime that controls the distribution of our national wealth and would never support progressive arts. This resilient attitude which is now adapted by the younger generations, was very important in the recent difficult times where despite pressures and the fears, the visual arts has stood its ground and has been an outspoken and integral part of the structure of our brave civil society.
Our artists continue to consciously challenge the status quo and the peripheral environment as well as themselves. They insist on their sense of independence and persist in their capabilities like all other modern human beings. They help preserve a Persian legacy, enriching our lives and inspiring us as a nation to become better than we are. It is this perseverance and humility that is the source of the merit of Iranian arts and its limitless potential.
We are constantly reminded of our legendry bird: The Phoenix who is believed to possess the knowledge of all times, from ashes she rises to create wonderment, she plunges in to flames to be purified , to rise again, every time stronger, every time mightier.
Nazila Noebashari

Opening on 4th March 2022
On view until 1st April 2022

Manijeh Armin- Tajsar Jafari- Marjan Hoshiar- Koosha Moossavi- Arezoo Shahdadi- Shahrzad Araghinejad- Mehdi Farhadian- Allahyar Najafi- Parsoua Mahtash- Mohammad Eskandari- Nastaran Safaei- Parisa Taghipour- Mahya Giv- Maryam Farshad- Sara Tavana- Rene Saheb- Manijeh And Parisa Hejazi- Salé Sharifi

A Flower Blossoms for its Own Joy.
Oscar wilde

We celebrate the arrival of the Iranian New Year and a New Century by showcasing works of artists whose practice is mostly influenced by nature. On this occasion, it is fitting to quote an Ode to A Garden Carpet – By an unknown Sufi Poet (Circa 1500):
Here in this carpet lives an ever-lovely spring, un-scorched by summer’s ardent flame, safe too from autumn’s boisterous gales, Mid winter’s cruel ice and snow, ‘Tis gaily blooming still. Eyes hot-seared by desert glare find healing in its velvet shade. Splashing foundations and rippling pools in cool retreats, sore-wearied limbs restore, and tired hearts awaken with joy. The way was cruel.
Baffled by monotony and mocked by phantoms, delirious, beset by stalking death in guises manifold; The dreaded jinns, the beasts ferocious, the flaming heat and the exploding storms; from all these perils here at last set free; in the Garden all find security.
Here the long-laboring Earth, at last, gives birth. From apparent death, a new and lovely world is born; the jacinth imprisoned lies below the desert’s dusty floor. The stony wilderness is so bleak and bare, in ageless patience broods, aware of life within, the promise of fertility and abundance. Ever longing for deliverance. The world, at last, reveals its destiny.
Can we not then capture and restore The loveliness that gave us hope, still brightly mirrored on memory’s gliding waters or snared in the poets’ invisible net, so wide, so fragile, yet captor and conqueror of realities elusive?
Wrought in gold and azure, bright as carved metal. Dream-like foliage in sparking tones is caught, or else, in sumptuous shades of glossy lacquer, quiet but intense; in muffled browns and honey pure, Jasper cool and mellow cinnabar, that fairyland comes real again.
In sudden collisions, find sweet embrace; in rhythms enchanting, with stately pace, rollicking speed; emerging, retreating, reversing, in peaceful finality. Their conflicts reconcile, all in confederation blending like a chorus in part-song gladly singing, In contrapuntal play rejoicing, floating soft or wildly free, yet anchored in eternity.

Artists:
Farhad Ahrarnia- Shirin Mellatgohar – Allahyar Najafi – Aidin Bagheri — Maryam Farzadian- Sofia and Behzad Hatefi -Nastaran Safaei — Atefeh Khas – Amin Shojaei – Rene Saheb
Opening on 6th August 2021
On view until 20th August 2021

What is gathered in this exhibition are sub-narratives that are identified by the narrator as the point of reference and source of its validation. The memory of objects has changed so much that looking at their point of origin cannot be fully recognized; what seems obvious is questioned by the shifting of the point of view, and what is considered convincing is viewed with skepticism. These recycled works are born out of accidents and incidents and reborn through the act of recovery and by overcoming the turmoil. Facing the question of “Remember R,” these works are a reminder of: What should I remember? How do I remember? By clinging to the lost past and drowning in nostalgia? Or are we to be accused of not having a historical memory?
Mahoor Toosi

Opening on 24th July 2020
On view until 10th August 2020

Featuring Artists:
Hossein Valamanesh- Arita Shahrzad- Nico Vascellari- Mahmoud Bakhshi Moakhar- Zarvan Rouhbakhshan- Mahdiyeh Pazouki-Allahyar Najafi- Anahita Razmi-Navid Salajegheh- Amir Hossein Shahnazi- Iman Safaei- Mahoor Toosi

It is not a wonder that artists who have inherited the traditions of intertwining text and image (particularly in reference to Persian Illustrated Manuscript art) should use words to create art. Nowadays, new contexts are added, whereby implications and associations are transformed with no changes in the meaning and shape of words and only by relocating and altering the context. Now words are moved and repositioned, not only in books and inscriptions but in every surface and space that can be seized. Words slide from one context to the next, and in this movement, both the pitch of the slide and the subject are important. But in every new encounter, there is more microscopic attention to meaning, and texts are read word by word. In the labyrinth of contexts and all languages, any disruption and multiplied references to add to the complexity of meaning. Of course, in a language as formal and as courtesies as Farsi, ambiguity can sometimes be received as literal meaning and sometimes as a complex and deceptive metaphor. Quoting a notable phrase can now be a critique of dominant powers. The most ordinary words can reference a trend, and the most common words can become personal manifestos. Any intimate word can become the voice of the public’s demands, and any suggestion can be perceived as an insult and any ridicule a political and social action. In this way, even elimination and absence of meaning can be considered meaningful, and the fieriest texts castrated stammer.

Akram Ahmadi Tavana

Opening on 6th March 2020

Tower of Babel is a continued tale of world conflict, of desires to understand and appreciate differences in the human race, and then the race’s inability to make it so. A rotating tale of hope and despair.
The people of the world speak different languages as they are incapable of truly appreciating the “other” it is completely possible that if we spoke the same language, we probably would have had more wars on our hands. The myth itself is confused and contorted and does not tally with the linguistic history of the world nor with the realities of physics and mathematics.
Allahyar Najafi’s Tower of Babel illustrates the ugliness and confusion in our modern-day cities in Iran and, indeed, those of the world. He brings down the very idea of Iran as the land of “Gohar“ and roses and nightingales. Facing up the realities of our life, the artist depicts a near end of the world imagery that, in its roughness, is beautiful. This is not a gate of god, nor is it seven levels of self-discovery, and it totally defies similar implications. It has its roots in plain, simple, unruly, and uninspiring urbanism: one that takes shape when the intellect is pushed aside, and greed, poverty, and despair triumph.
This series of works is about re-finding ideals by looking at the reality on the ground. Even in the choice of materials used: bits and pieces of artist’s photographs, found images, and cello tape, this act of reshaping and redefining is evident. Artist is not a daydreamer. He is here to remind us of what is truly distasteful in our lives. To show that greed that has been destroying our habitat -among other things- and lack of self-reflection is the driving force in our modern-day life, especially in our land where junkyards look better than most of our urban scenery.
Allahyar Najafi is a poet confounded with urbanism and struggles to find meaning in a land of misperception and distrust. He creates a world that is terrifying in its depth but still very pleasing to look at.
Passing through despair makes other things possible, and new dreams take shape. Having no expectation is a position of strength, possibility, hope, and future that might as yet be conceivable.
Nazila Noebashari

Opening at Aaran Projects, on 22nd June 2018

Artists:
Mohamad Eskandari- Nasser Bakhshi- Asal Peyrovani- Nasim Davari- Faxteh Shamsian- Hadi Alijani- Meghdad Lorpour- Nogol Mazloumi- Roqayeh Najdi- Allahyar Najafi.

Memories both as an individual’s experience and as a collective one have a lasting effect on artists. ‎Memories are lived experiences of the artist with a direct impact on their psyche and soul. So it can be ‎said that what differentiates art from life is the immortality of art versus the transient quality of life.‎
In recent decades we have witnessed an increasing number of artists who drive inspiration from their ‎memories; bits and pieces of everyday life, and dreams and wishes. Censored memories, works of a ‎disclosing nature and picturing what artists have had to endure in their personal lives are more visible in ‎the art scene.‎
The essence of memories is closely linked with time. Henri Bergson argues that the true time, is the ‎time of our anguish and dejections, the time of regrets and impatience, and a time for our hopes and ‎thirst.‎
This exhibition attempts to display forgotten and remembered memories. A flash back, a retelling of a ‎story from past that has affected artists’ mind. Maybe a joyful memory of childhood, or an unfulfilled ‎love, or a flash back from a collective social memory which has been imprinted on the consciousness ‎of the artists.‎
Mina Feshangchi

Opening at Aaran Gallery on 16th February 2018
On view until 2nd March 2018

Allahyar Najafi is an urban poet. He offers different interpretations to a collection of words; names of ‎places, digital signs and advertisements, reminding us the cities are made of words. The energy and ‎speed of the cities he has lived in has made their mark. The poet walks the streets of cities and through ‎lived experiences; he brings out the mundane in our everyday life. He collects scattered words in the ‎city to articulate his identity and to explain his existence within the concrete and brick walls of cities. ‎The excitements and frustrations of city life are fleeting moments and if not for urban poets who ‎record and sing these moments, perhaps we will have very little to explain ourselves by. In our modern ‎cities and the state of connectivity that we enjoy, we can easily be disconnected from our immediate ‎surroundings, if not for the effort of artists and writers who explore the new arenas and arcades and ‎create new memories for its citizens, we will probably not reconnect with our surroundings, at least ‎not in a meaningful way.‎
The energy of this city dweller brings together the mechanical as well as natural elements that is a ‎menagerie of the organic shapes and industrial forms; a multitude of layers that resembles urban life. ‎Through the layers of paint on lenticular sheets he opens a combination of windows, windows that ‎narrate only part of the story but together they create collective consciousness.‎
In the collage of his own photographs, his hybrids are free to roam the skies of the cities; freed from ‎restraints and the brick and mortar; a flight of fancy that is engaging and wondrous.‎
In his amazing video “Shathiyat”, meaning ecstatic utterance and referencing Persian Sufi poetry, a ‎love poem takes shape, one that is either addressed to a lady or to the city itself, the audience is to ‎decide for themselves. Again artist collects words from the city and his rhythmic and expressive reading ‎of these names creates poetry that is soothing and thought provoking. Same theme continues in his ‎Rubik cubes- reminiscent of building blocks in a city- once again his playful mind offers combinations of ‎words and numerous grouping of interconnecting cubes. ‎
Both in meaning and in process Allahyar Najafi shows his wondering mind and pondering gaze. He ‎engages with cities and is concerned with effects of subversive human greed and urban life on nature. ‎In his ideal world citizens of the cities exist in the same story, not in ideal cities but in actual ones. Cities ‎are considered as domains of ideas where the ugly and the beautiful come together and embrace ‎multiplicity and grace of all the elements of life.‎
Nazila Noebashari