Parisa Taghipour

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 8th July 2022
On view until 5th August 202

Fatemeh Bahman Siyahmard- Parisa Taghipour- Elmira Mirmiran- Maryam Farshad- Koosha Moossavi- Ebtehaj Ghanadzadeh- Noushin Jafari- Faezeh Baharlou. Siamak Nasr.

The exhibition aims to bring together a divergent set of works. Representing, but also upsetting, the relationship between the artists and their connection to reality. Spheres that contain paradoxes and manage to juxtapose the ideal with the unattainable.
Openings and closings.
Slices cut off from the real world and shaped by emotional needs: Somewhere Else.
Breaking away from the harsh realities is a Persian Tradition manifested in our literature and arts, even in our timeless tradition of humor. The tough realism of the everyday is compensated by stepping into another dimension, cherishing illusions that replace the real world.
Here are exaggerated floating spaces- a placeless place- yet in connection with the spaces that remain outside them. Within these spaces, we are alive, free of borders and restrictions, away from the mundane, and separated from the gloom that engulfs our land. Able to float in an archipelago of plurality, as we are supposed to.
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.

Opening on 4th September 2020
On view until 14th September 2020

Art is said to represent the world in the frame of the artist’s gaze. In established perception, long before we existed and in an invisible expanse, the world has witnessed the perpetual confrontation of good and evil. Divinities, demons, the Devil, and angels appear in myths to paint the picture of this never-ending contest in the collective memory of the mortals. This series of works aims to challenge this preconceived notion.
Akvan, Angra Mainyu, and Zahhak, the everlasting symbols of decay and destruction, are not recalled from the world of myth. Here the artist aims to display hidden aspects of her soul and attach them to the final object. The artist’s Demons appear from the saturated tunnels of the artist’s unconsciousness, from her inner depths. They speak of fears and pains, of a great loss. On the one hand, these statues depict the sinister male myths and, on the other side, portray female characteristics. A paradox under scrutiny reveals the unique approach and gaze of the artist in contrast to the aforementioned perceptions. The dark aspects of femininity in the work of the artist are far more personal to be a representation of myth. More than anything, they recall the inception of myths. In their silence and tranquility, these deformed bodies cry out that the myths are not forever, the divinities and demons, the good and the evil, light and darkness, despite what we believe is not celestial. Because of our existence, they have been ripped through our fears and sufferings: raised from within our flesh, blood, and pulse. Myth is no more an allegorical reality, but it is a reality created by us, a manifestation of the beauty and splendor of creation and art’s ability to depict that creation.
Ali Reza Ghani

Opening at Aaran Projects on August 14th 2020

Curtain II
Curated by Akram Ahamdi Tavana
Featuring works by:
Mortez Momayez-Samira Alikhanzadeh- Yasmin Sinai-Nasim Davari- Mahsa Kheirkhah-Homayoun Sirizi-Parisa Taghipour-Hamed Jaberha-Parham Peyvandi

This year marks the Millennium of the passing ofEpic Poet of Persians, Hakim Abul Ghasem Ferdowsi, whose Shahnameh, The Book of Kings, is credited with preserving our language and Persian history. To mark this occasion, we are exhibiting works by nine artists, with diverse practices, as a continuation of a project that started five years ago. On March 4th, 2016, we held an exhibition titled Shahnameh, The Perpetual Narrative: A survey of the Impact of Shahnameh on modern and contemporary art of Iran, curated by Akram Ahmadi Tavana. The catalog’s foreword was by Dr.Firuza Melville and included works of twenty-two artists.
Shahnameh’s influence remains strong in the poetry and visual arts of Iran. The selection for this exhibition is merely a portion of this enduring fascination with thousands of verses recalling the glory and splendor as well as failures and defeats of Persians, to quote Shahrokh Meskoob, “the history of the victory of defeat.”

Opened on 5th July 2019
Continued to 22nd July 2019

Group exhibition displaying sculptures by:
Azam Hosseinabadi- Mahbobeh Hosseini Mousa- Mahdieh Pazouki- Farnaz Rabieijah -Nastaran Safaie-Parisa Taghipour
and special guest Farzaneh Mehri

Roots Buried in the Dark Earth
They soaked up the energy of the sun and
The essence of the moon
Moistened by the rain and dew, they understood…

This exhibition aims to combine the works of seven female sculptors with their distinct language and approach. The diversity in this group of works is an indicator of the spirit of perseverance and dedication by which these artists have so far molded their individual paths.
The exhibition’s title is an excerpt from the novel Red Sorghum by Mo Yan. On page two, he characterizes the place of the narrative, Northeast Gaomi Township, as ‘easily the most beautiful and most repulsive, most unusual and most common, most sacred and most corrupt, most heroic and most bastardly, hardest-drinking and hardest-loving place in the world.
The vibrant artworks gathered in this exhibition are a product of this time and this place, where we are the happiest and the most miserable; a product of land in a constant state of flux, a realm where extraordinary circumstances always persist. It is, therefore, the ambition of this exhibition to show that against such a backdrop, purity of thought and approach is still possible and deserves appreciation and exposure.

A group exhibition
Opening at Aaran Projects on 20th July 2018
On view until 6th August

If traditionally depiction of the perfect body was used to explore and express allegory, beauty and ‎sexuality, in recent decades the perception has changed and there has been a focus on imperfections ‎with many artists refraining from chasing the mirage of perfection. This exhibition aims to show ‎imperfections and reality depicted in the works of these three artists whose practice circles around ‎human body with the obvious intention of offering their own stories and interpretations. In these ‎highly emotional works, imperfection is the key. Deficiency is a virtue, flaws are celebrated, ‎inadequacy is enough, and the ugly is beautiful. ‎

Shaqayeq Ahmadian, at tender age of 23, provokes an emotive reaction because we are familiar with ‎these scenes and functions; a birthday party, the memory of a picture taken with our friend or sister, ‎the photograph of a favorite pet. Our memory of similar experiences can be happy or distressing or ‎negative or altogether positive, and it is this connection that endears her work to the viewer. With ‎simple lines and materials and with a free and playful approach, she offers ambiguity; what will happen ‎next, why is it happening, what will be the outcome. She leaves the viewer lingering on, hoping for the ‎best and bracing themselves for the worst. The images are open ended; there is no finality and no ‎lessons to be learned, only a sigh, a moment, a little bit of happiness or not.‎

Farzad Shekari, in his series Kane and Abel, offers similar vagueness. The first question that arises is ‎which image is Kane and which one is Abel. The end of this infamous story is well known, but what ‎happened before that? What transpired? Who did what first? In his simple yet entirely controlled style, ‎he tells a tale of brotherhood, manhood, betrayal, guilt and remorse. In these fluid paintings the focus ‎is on emotions and viewer can track the dotted lines, leading them to explore the fate of boys that ‎grow to men. Appropriating such a legendry tale, artist refrains from painting heroes’ body or that of a ‎fallen one. There are no victims and no winners, there is only the sad tale of people who are incapable ‎of coming together and celebrating their similarities rather than their fears and obsessions.‎

Parisa Taghipour’s dramatic figures salute the legendary female heroines of human history as well as ‎Persian mythology. Eve and Anahita and Tahmina are molded to bring their story to 21st century: Eve ‎that is mother to all, Anahita who is the goddess of water, fertility and healing, Tahmina the female ‎heroine of Shahnameh who embraced her fallen son. The imperfect female body, camouflaged (to ‎avoid censorship) with glands and tumors, are perhaps references to broken souls of many women ‎who have suffered in our patriarchal society for centuries. In a system that is concerned with the virtue ‎of its women and not its men, these bold, broken and highly expressive figures, are worthy substitutes ‎for legendry heroines and goddesses.‎