Cut, Action
"Cut, Action" solo show of moving images at Bavan Gallery
December 14, 2022 – January 4, 2023
In late 2022, independent and private art spaces in Iran were closed for nearly 100 days as a gesture of response and respect to the Life, Women, Freedom revolution. After this period of closure, Bavan Gallery reopened with a solo exhibition by Parham Ghalamdar titled Cut, Action. The show featured looping moving images of absurdist mechanical parts, reminiscent of the myth of Sisyphus.
The gallery released the following collaboratively authored statement to address the exhibition while subtly avoiding direct political involvement. The moving images, originally commissioned by PROFORMA during the 2020 lockdown as part of the Loiter project, were central to the exhibition. In addition to the video works, 100 frames from the moving images were selected, printed, and made available for the audience to take home as a token of allyship.
The STATEMENT
"The screening of "Cut, action" stop cell animations is part of the 9 thousand hand-drawn frames produced from the pandemic's beginning until today.
The starting point of this collection was my reaction to the pause of my usual artistic activities after facing the mandatory quarantine conditions and the inability to attend the studio to complete the physical paintings. Animating is my other language to react to social circumstances now. This language acts as a tool to continue the dialogue with the audience of my works in the era when I am facing the lack of freedom of movement.
The release of the animation series “Cut, Action” in my absence due to migration and the absence of the physical collection of my paintings and drawings is the result of facing the current situation and my effort to deal with being stopped.
In these animations, the audience watches the movement in immobility and stillness, and in search of the punchline, it encounters another loop. Each person's reading can create a new narrative and reconstruct or complete the narrative.
The suspended state of these animations is the window of my studio that has been opened in front of the viewer to represent the continuation of my artistic activity until my postponed painting solo exhibition in Tehran in better days."
copy rights of the installation shots belong to Bavan Gallery.
