The Mall Galleries, located by Admiralty Arch at Trafalgar Square, rank as one of among most collector-friendly galleries in London. Two airy, spacious well-lit rooms, complemented by the North Room for more focused showing, offer exactly the right amount of space for important exhibitions without that loss of thematic connection or purpose which sometimes afflicts larger art shows. Seeing, and seeing again, are made easy.
Capital Art London Gallery, under the inspired direction of Marina Panahi, relocated the Iranian Contemporary Art Biennale (the sixth edition) to the Mall Galleries at the end of May this year. The partnership between Capital and Mall produced a fascinating display of substantial and novel work by Iranian artists working in 17 different countries, within Iran and throughout the Near East, North America and Europe. This diverse collection embraced works on canvas and paper in many manifestations and traditions, ceramics, photography and metal sculpture, all of outstanding interest. It remains available to collectors at Capital at prices which buyers will find very attractive.
The title was Eternal Iran: With My Roots; but anyone visiting this show expecting somehow to acquire an academic or theoretical understanding of ‘Iranian Art’ would have been disappointed. Instead, they met a panorama of modern Iranian artistic imagination and invention across the entire spectrum of media. The show was charged with content and meaning but avoided any taint of the didactic. This collector made two visits to grasp its variety, depth and detail.
Everyone, whatever their position on the complex politics that afflict the nation and the region, must acknowledge that these are difficult times for those living in Iran, and for the Iranian diaspora. Inevitably, many of the works on display cross-referred, in different and quite arresting ways, to Iranian history and culture. Some conjured a sense of memory, loss and disconnection. There was also a lot of art plain and simple, to be relished on its own terms.
One great figure and one important moment in Iranian history could both be seen in formal settings. Cyrus the Great (590-530 BCE), conqueror, lawgiver and emancipator of slaves, who enjoys the rare distinction of acclaim in Herodotus and the Old Testament, appears helmeted in glittering gold and turquoise in a fine portrait by Hojjat Shakiba, based on ancient images. The Women’s Revolution of 1911, in which the women of Iran, in league with the press, rebelled against Russian domination of the nation’s internal affairs, is staged by USA-based artist Azadeh Akhlaghi in a panoramic still photograph. The group on the right, with their backs turned to the viewer, are attired in white funeral robes concealing pistols at the ready. The many other participants are shown preoccupied with the task of preparation for the protest. Each of these works casts a significant shadow over the present day.
Alongside Akhlagi’s work photographs by Maryam Saeed, Maryam Rahmanian and Shahia Kahadadi, among others, tell a no-nonsense plain tale of life under bombardment. The photographic section was lightened by Arman Stepanian’s picture of two men at a table, bottle of wine in the middle, playing backgammon below and mirroring Cezanne’s Card Game, one of the treasures at The Courtauld.
At the last moment it became possible to display in the North Room a suite of superb works by master-miniaturist Hossein Ali Machiani, who works in Iran. Now separately catalogued, this collection reaches back to the ancient tradition of blending on paper plant and bird life and mythical images in the most delicate and colourful detail, with dazzling technical skill.
Fine calligraphy plays an important role in national tradition. Modern abstract artists Esmail Rashvand, Mehdi Fallah, Mohammad Bozorgi Ahmad Mohamadpour and Bahram Hanifi demonstrate vibrantly coloured renderings of flowing graceful script. It is impossible also not to mention fish, a symbol in the Iranian world of life and movement, the union of earth and sky, vividly caught by Soheila Golestani (Most fruitful fish is me) and Niloufar Borzognia, showing in Dance a red and a blue fantail goldfish in full display. Roya Khalili’s portrait I am continuity has the modern subject (herself?), her red hair standing on end, against a background of women of earlier generations in traditional dress and – yes – a school of fish encircling her shoulders. Many more fish could be detected by the observant eye.
Collectors interested in emerging artists should see the combined paintings and collages of Parvaneh Babaii, figures partially and subtly emerging from a white background and coloured geometrical shapes. Those interested in metal sculpture would look carefully at a suite of works entitled Breath of Time by the sculptor Esfandiar Esfandar, well-known in the UK. Hossein Khosroderji, another well-established British-Iranian artist, was represented by an impressive untitled group in oils of mysterious anthropomorphic shapes, dominating the far end of the West Room.
The signature piece for the show was a large wall-piece in bronze and cold-cast resins by Hami Ebrahimi named for the Afraa tree. It shows a long branch of the tree breaking out from a crack in a white wall, its burgeoning leaves stretching out into free air. The symbolism is unmistakeable, encapsulating much of the meaning and intent lying behind the collection.
The entire catalogue, full of content, available from Capital, rewards close reading.