Once Upon A Time In Iran
روزی روزگاری در ایران
نمایش آثار اولاف بژسکی
جمعه، بیستم اردیبهشت ماه، موسسه‌ی کاف میزبان آثار هنرمند سرشناس لهستانی، اولاف بژسکی با عنوان “روزی روزگاری در ایران” خواهد بود که طی یک دوره‌ی پنج ماهه اقامت هنری (سه بار سفر به ایران در طول یک سال) در شهر تبریز و با همکاری سرامیک‌کاران ساکن این شهر تولید شدهاند. این دومین همکاری این هنرمند با موسسه‌ی کاف بعد از نمایش چیدمان او در حیاط مجسمه‌های موزه‌ی هنرهای معاصر تهران در سال ۱۳۹۳ است. اولاف بژسکی با رسانه‌هایی نظیر طراحی، مجسمه، چیدمان و فیلم کارمی‌کند و این بار او زبان سرامیک را برای آثار خود انتخاب کرده‌است که در بستری از مواد بازیافت و سپس طراحی‌شده توسط خود هنرمند به نمایش در خواهند آمد.
کارهای اولاف بژسکی هم رومانتیک هستند و هم سوررئال ولی به واسطه‌ی درهم‌تنیدگی‌شان با بستر و زمان حال هیچ برچسبی را برنمی‌تابند. نمایش‌های او پر است از بازنمایی حیواناتی که عناصری از دنیاهای بی‌ارتباط را در خود جمع کرده‌اند. آنها به واسطه‌ی قدرت و طبیعی بودن روایت‌شان خبر از دنیایی تازه ساخته‌شده می‌دهند. ولی گویی این بیننده نبوده که این دنیای تازه ساخت شده را کشف کرده بلکه این دنیای جدید است که به ما خیره می‌شود. در نمایش “روزی روزگاری در ایران” او به سراغ حیوانی می‌رود که روزی روزگاری قبل از آنکه آخرین بازماندگانشان را با هواپیما و برای احیای نسل به تهران بیاورند سمبل این سرزمین بوده است. شیرهای اولاف بژسکی دندان‌های انسان دارند و انسان‌های او صورت شیر. والایی، شکوه و گذشته‌ی پرافتخار عامل اصلی سوق‌پیداکردن او به چنین موتیف‌هایی در بستر ایران امروز است. آنها با رخوتی غیرمعمول از اسطوره، طبیعت، گذشته، زندگی روزمره، مردم عادی و وطن صحبت می‌کنند.
مدیر تولید: عاطفه فاضل
کیوریتور: علیرضا لبشکا
همکاران کارگاه سرامیک: بتول احمدپور و الهام حسنی از گروه غبار
طراح گرفیک: امیر مقتدا از استودیو را
مشاوره و اجرای چیدمان: استودیو معماری کوه
عکاس: مسیح مستجران از استودیو دید
Once Upon A Time In Iran
An exhibition of Installation and Sculpture by Olaf Brzeski
On Friday, May 10th, Kaaf Institute will host distinguished Polish artist, Olaf Brzeski, with a series titled: “Once Upon a Time in Iran”. Created with ceramic artists from Tabriz during a three-month artist residency program (spent in three trips over a year), “Once Upon a Time in Iran” is Brzeski’s second collaboration with Kaaf Foundation; the former being his sculpture installation in Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in 2014. Olaf Brezski works in mediums of installation, illustration, sculpture & film. This time, he’s chosen ceramics as his language, and a field of recycled and redesigned material as his exhibition space.
An exhibition of Installation and Sculpture by Olaf Brzeski
On Friday, May 10th, Kaaf Institute will host distinguished Polish artist, Olaf Brzeski, with a series titled: “Once Upon a Time in Iran”. Created with ceramic artists from Tabriz during a three-month artist residency program (spent in three trips over a year), “Once Upon a Time in Iran” is Brzeski’s second collaboration with Kaaf Foundation; the former being his sculpture installation in Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in 2014. Olaf Brezski works in mediums of installation, illustration, sculpture & film. This time, he’s chosen ceramics as his language, and a field of recycled and redesigned material as his exhibition space.
Olaf Brzeski’s works are both romantic and surreal, but they reject all labels due to their perpetual entanglement to the present. His exhibitions depict animals that have collected attributes of unrelated worlds within them. Their natural and compelling narrative heralds the creation of a new world. Yet, it seems it is not we the spectators discovering this newly created world, but rather it is this novel world staring back at us. In “Once Upon a Time in Iran”, he picks an animal that was once upon a time (before they began shipping-in its remaining survivors to Tehran for species restoration) the symbol of this country. Olaf Brzeski’s lions have human teeth and his humans carry lion heads. Dignity, glory and an illustrious past were the primary components driving him towards such motifs. They speak of myths, nature, the past, homeland, ordinary people and daily life, with an unusual lethargy.
اولاف بیژسکی همیشه شیفته‌ی مواد متفاوت بوده است، و دقیق‌تر درگیر شکل دادن به حجم با دست و نه ابزار صنعتی؛ کارهای او نه یادآور دست‌ساخت‌های انسان‌های انخستین است و نه عصر ماشین. فرایند کاری او جایی‌ست بعد از اختراع چرخ و قبل از ماشین بخار. هنر او قابل استفاده است، نه به این دلیل که بشقاب می‌سازد و روی آن نقاشی می‌کشد، بیشتر به این خاطر که حسی از حمایت از خانواده و تولید برای بقا را در خود جای داده است. نقاشی‌های روی بشقاب‌ها شبیه صفحه‌های نخست یک کتاب قصه است؛ داستان از قصه تاریکی روز نخستین آغاز می‌شود، از پیدایش، از طلوع صبح اول، جایی که همه چیز آغاز می‌شود، آنگاه که نور می‌تابد و رنگ ها شکل می‌گیرند. روز نخستینی که بیشتر شبیه به آخر الزمان است. چیزی که برای پسرش تعریف می‌کند، دنیایی ترسناک که پشت در خانه منتظر آنهاست. بشقاب‌های او شبیه به چشم سومی هستند که سیاره‌ای که در آن زمانی دیگر است را نشان می‌دهد. اولاف این بار در نقش جادوگر به درخواست ما اول یا آخرالزمانی را نشان می‌دهد که در آن به سختی موجودی زنده پیدا می‌شود. پرتره‌ها و چشم‌اندازهایی که گویی از شدت گرمای فراوان حالت عادی خود را از دست داده‌اند و در افقی از حرارت دیده می‌شوند، شاید این خود به شکلی هوشمندانه به پخت بشقاب‌ها در کوره گره بخورد؛ این چشم‌اندازها ترک می‌خورند و ترمیم می‌شوند ولی آینده تغییری نمی‌کند. هر چه که هست خیلی امیدوار کننده به نظر نمی‌رسد. بوی خون و نابودی می‌دهد. بوی خونی که در سردیس‌های شیرها بیشتر به مشام می‌رسد. شیر ها یادآور صحنه‌ای هستند پس از شکست حریف و در هنگام بلعیدن گوشت و خون وقتی که سرهای خود را از داخل بدن شکار بیرون می‌آورند. صحنه‌ای تماشایی در طبیعت. صورتی خون آلود در اوج غریزه که به ترس معنایی دوباره می‌دهد. بدون شک آنها پیروز شدهاند. بیژسکی این سردیس‌های باوقار را برای شیرهایی ساخته که حاکم قلمرو خود هستند، همانند فیدیاس که زئوس را ساخت ولی مجسمه‌اش اسیر بازی تاریخ شد. اما بیژسکی آینده‌ی سردیس‌های خود را در بشقاب‌هایش می‌بیند؛ شیری که دیگر چیزی برایش باقی نمانده و حتی نمی‌تواند از خود در مقابل بازیگوشی شیرهای جوانتر این قلمرو دفاع کند. آنها "ترسو" را روی شیر پیر نقاشی می‌کنند. قهرمان دیگر به کار کسی نمی‌آید. و این تلخ ترین قسمت این ماجراست. هنرمندی که سیاهی این دوران را در ذره ذره‌ی وجود خود حس کرده حالا همانند باقی ما کاری از دستش ساخته نیست جز بیدار کردن بقیه برای تماشای لحظه‌ی نابودی.
(شباهنگ طیاری)
Olaf Brzeski has always been passionate about different built materials, and more precisely crafting with his hands rather than industrial tools; his works are neither reminder of man’s early handcraft, nor of machine age. His work process is somewhere after invention of wheel and before invention of steam engine. His art is of use, not because he makes plates and paints them, but rather because these plates embrace a sense of family support as well as producing as a mean of survival. Paintings on these plates are like first pages of a story book; the story begins from darkness of the first day, from the genesis, from the first dawn, when everything begins, when early light shines and colours take shape. The first day that looks more like an Armageddon. He tells a story for his son, a story of a scary world which is standing by their door. His plates are like a third eye that shows us another planet in which it is another time. Brzeski, this time as a wizard, shows us at our request the first day or the apocalypse in which a living being can be barely found. Portraits and landscapes that have gone awry because of extreme heat and that are seen only from a torrid horizon, this may catch up in an astute way to the fact that plates are baked in a kiln; landscapes shattered and restored but future remains the same. Whatever it is, it does not look very promising. It smells like blood and death. The smell of blood comes mostly from busts of lions. Lions remind us of a scene when the rival is defeated and they are devouring meat and blood with their heads deep into their prey. A spectacular scene in nature. A bloody face in climax which gives fear a new meaning. They have conquered beyond doubts. Brzeski sculpted these gracious busts for lions who are kings of their territory, like Phidias who sculpted Zeus, whose sculpture became captive to play of history. But, Brzeski sees the future of these busts in his plates; a lion who has nothing left and cannot defend his territory from younger lions. And they paint the word ‘yellow’ on the old lion. The hero is of no more use to anyone. And this is the most bitter part of the story. The artist has deeply felt the darkness of our time and now just like rest of us can do nothing except awakening others only to witness this final moment of apocalypse.
(Shabahang Tayyari)
Emptiness is Coming
Silence takes on a different meaning in each genre of music, in people’s everyday conversations or their prepared speeches. Despite their pre-determined meanings, all these various forms of si- lence have one thing in common: they are the emptiness before they are formed, or they solicit contemplation after their formation. All forms of silence are somehow invitations to what is, or will be, presented. There is a certain sense of attachment in each silence’s moment of realization; an attachment to the past or future. As if silences owe their sheer existence to what comes before or after them. Silence is nothing on its own, an emptiness, but so is the thing which precedes or fol- lows it. That is what makes silence so mesmerizing and what grants it a paradoxical essence. The same power that spellbinds a crowd during a commanding speech. The common denominator that all skilled public speakers seem to rely on. The speaker in question could be an ethics professor; or a dictator, who uses this emptiness, this blackhole, to their advantage. This power could outwit even the brightest of all intellectuals. When asked what part of the “Führer’s” speech was the most appealing, Heidegger replied with, “His words are of no importance. Look at his marvelous hands!” Hands that rose and fell in lapses of silence and invited its audience to a blackhole they knew nothing of, as words filled the air in that moment of captivation and enchantment. It possessed a power so grand that it even bewildered prominent phenomenologists.
But what if we become indifferent to what lies at the bottom of a blackhole, or what awaits us in the future? What if a moment of silence in a concert was not meant to be broken by the sound of in- struments, and even the audience stoped anticipating to hear the rest of the song? An interrupted speech that is not supposed to continue; what would that sound like? Do we not live in an age of continuous emptiness? We have surpassed drowning ourselves in blackholes and silences. Now, perhaps all words, political agendas, leaders/Führers or ideas, regardless of whether they come from the East or the West, fail to entice us altogether. We live in an age where one emptiness is intended to attach itself to another. An age where its bloodless and futile sun, rises hopelessly from behind a once-mythical mountain and we, its inhabitants, drowsily rub our heavy eyes in a recur- ring silence, trying to look past our glorious past. Even nature, the purest of all concepts, can not end our inertia with all its rebellions. This idle space; this infinite vanity; this emptiness never leads to any thrills.
Alireza Labeshka
for Olaf Brzeski and his exhibition, Once upon a time in Iran
Silence takes on a different meaning in each genre of music, in people’s everyday conversations or their prepared speeches. Despite their pre-determined meanings, all these various forms of si- lence have one thing in common: they are the emptiness before they are formed, or they solicit contemplation after their formation. All forms of silence are somehow invitations to what is, or will be, presented. There is a certain sense of attachment in each silence’s moment of realization; an attachment to the past or future. As if silences owe their sheer existence to what comes before or after them. Silence is nothing on its own, an emptiness, but so is the thing which precedes or fol- lows it. That is what makes silence so mesmerizing and what grants it a paradoxical essence. The same power that spellbinds a crowd during a commanding speech. The common denominator that all skilled public speakers seem to rely on. The speaker in question could be an ethics professor; or a dictator, who uses this emptiness, this blackhole, to their advantage. This power could outwit even the brightest of all intellectuals. When asked what part of the “Führer’s” speech was the most appealing, Heidegger replied with, “His words are of no importance. Look at his marvelous hands!” Hands that rose and fell in lapses of silence and invited its audience to a blackhole they knew nothing of, as words filled the air in that moment of captivation and enchantment. It possessed a power so grand that it even bewildered prominent phenomenologists.
But what if we become indifferent to what lies at the bottom of a blackhole, or what awaits us in the future? What if a moment of silence in a concert was not meant to be broken by the sound of in- struments, and even the audience stoped anticipating to hear the rest of the song? An interrupted speech that is not supposed to continue; what would that sound like? Do we not live in an age of continuous emptiness? We have surpassed drowning ourselves in blackholes and silences. Now, perhaps all words, political agendas, leaders/Führers or ideas, regardless of whether they come from the East or the West, fail to entice us altogether. We live in an age where one emptiness is intended to attach itself to another. An age where its bloodless and futile sun, rises hopelessly from behind a once-mythical mountain and we, its inhabitants, drowsily rub our heavy eyes in a recur- ring silence, trying to look past our glorious past. Even nature, the purest of all concepts, can not end our inertia with all its rebellions. This idle space; this infinite vanity; this emptiness never leads to any thrills.
Alireza Labeshka
for Olaf Brzeski and his exhibition, Once upon a time in Iran
Please wait...