The exhibition, curated by Silvia Cirelli, is first of all a cultural itinerary and then an artistic one, treating complex themes which have always been an integral part of this talented artist’s lexicon: an Iran of contrasts and paradoxes, teetering between modernity and tradition; reflections on female issues; the ghosts of bloody conflicts (like the Iran-Iraq War) or the ambivalence of a society constantly and precariously struggling between freedom and censorship, are only some of the re-evocations that Shadi Ghadirian examines with her expressive imprint.
Shadi Ghadirian is well-known internationally and without doubt an important key player of the contemporary artistic panorama. She has been invited to show her works in prestigious international museums, such as the British Museum, the CCCB in Barcelona, the Centre Pompidou and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Her works are also included in many great public collections, such as the Mumok in Vienna, the LACMA in Los Angeles, the Pergamon Museum in Berlin and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
Aside from representing a singular opportunity to explore the creative itinerary of this celebrated artist - from her early works in the late 1990s to her latest projectwhich is being presented in Italy for the very first time - this exhibition, entitled I’ve Grown Roses in my Garden, offers a glance into Iran’s complex social physiognomy. Ghadirian’s work is characterised by the collision of distinctive traits that are apparently opposites: irony and bitterness, charm and suffering, severity and evasion. The refinement of her lexicon, closely connected to an implicit autobiographical connotation, translates into an audacious and incisive creative symmetry, in which we discover that the focal element is the esthetics of allegory.
The collective memory is entwined with a new narrative, in which artistic investigation is often worn entirely on the notion of body, a body that that turns into photography, a re-elaboration of the artistic message. This is certainly what happens in the recent project Seven Stones (2023) with a reminder of the threat that violates domestic intimacy, materialising into a cumbersome and intimidating boulder, an arrogant and unwanted guest. The concept of constriction is also found in the series Miss Butterfly (2011), pictures in black and white that show women weaving spider webs in an atmosphere of silent suffering. These photographs, inspired by an ancient Iranian fable that tells of a butterfly who wanted to meet the sun, but instead is captured by a spider web, were created during the tense Iran post-election climate of 2010.
The transformation of life into art is also at the basis of the 2008 series Nil, Nil. Here the artist makes war appear an everyday element. Warlike accessories are associated with household objects, reminding us of how much conflicts are an integral part of the lives of Iranians.
The exhibition then continues with the celebrated series Like Everyday (2002), one of her most famous works. Women dressed in floral chadors are portrayed with modern kitchen utensils in the place of their faces, showing the heritage of a culture with strong contradictions and social incoherencies. The feminine question once again reveals its centrality in the project Be Colourful of 2000, though here the women are more easily visible as they observe the spectator from behind partially opaque paint streaked panes of glass.
The equilibrium of paradoxes and the inherent coexistence of opposites returns in the photographs of the project Qajar (1998) in which the artist reconstructs typical settings from the Qajar dynasty which reigned over Iran for about 150 years (1794-1925). To these historical settings however, Shadi Ghadirian adds “forbidden objects” of modernity – a camera, a telephone, feminine cosmetics or sun glasses – creating a clear scenic collision, a fundamental congenital ambivalence: in the complex Iranian social structure, two realities coexist on a daily basis.
