REZA DERAKSHANI the Breeze at Dawn

REZA DERAKSHANI The Breeze at Dawn

9 March - 23 April 2016

SOPHIA CONTEMPORARY GALLERY 11 Grosvenor Street, Mayfair, London, W1K 4QB, UK www.sophiacontemporary.com REZA DERAKSHANI

Reza Derakshani (born 1952) is a multi-talented painter, poet, musician and performance artist. Derakshani was born in Sangsar, a small village in the North East of Iran, close to the ancient Khorasan. His nomadic childhood, growing up at the top of a mountain in a black tent among horses and fields of blue and yellow wild flowers, had a significant impact on his artistic perception of natural beauty.

A child prodigy, Reza Derakshani received his first commission at the age of nine and held his first solo exhibition at the age of 19 at the renowned Ghandriz Art Gallery in Tehran, going on to exhibit internationally. Derakshani graduated from the University of Tehran in 1976. He continued his studies at the Pasadena School of Art in California, and returned to Iran to teach at the University of Tehran and the School of Decorative Arts. He left Iran in 1983 following the Islamic Revolution and finally found home in the city of New York in 1985 where he remained for sixteen years.

The artist became engrossed in Abstract Expressionism while living in New York and was soon associated with the revival of painting in the USA and Europe in the 1980s through the Neo-Expressionist style. Whilst being loosely affiliated to the movement and evolving in New York artistic circles with fellow artists and friends Francesco Clemente, Shirin Neshat, Alessandro and Cy Twombly, the experience of emigration led Derakshani to reconnect with his Iranian roots. After experimenting with pure abstraction, the artist devised his personal artistic style blending abstract and figurative elements from both Western and Eastern cultures, thereby creating an idiosyncratic oeuvre at the confluence of civilizations.

The artist subsequently moved to Italy, before returning again to Iran for seven years. He now divides his time between Dubai, UAE and Austin, USA, where in parallel to his career within visual arts, he collaborated with legendary musicians such as John Densmore, the drummer of the Doors, releasing a critically acclaimed album.

Reza Derakshani is known both in the Middle East and in the West as one of the most significant contemporary Iranian artists. His work features in many public art collections including the British Museum, London; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. Derakshani also performed as a musician in numerous museums and festivals such as the Brooklyn Museum and the Montreux Jazz Festival among others.

4 Reza Derakshani in his house, Austin, USA, 2016 5 FOREWORD Norman Rosenthal

Here in our Western World we’re all thinking much Parthian and Sasanian Empires that preceded Islam, about Iran at this moment. Perhaps we are emerging which rapidly conquered Iran in the seventh century AD, from a time when that astonishing land with its deep and so delightfully illustrated in luxurious manuscript culture has been cut from our minds for reasons only paintings from the succeeding centuries. In our time, partly understandable and based largely on irrational when there is so much talk of migration, it is easy to misunderstanding. What better way to reignite this forget that migration, whether forced or voluntary, has intrinsically beautiful world than through culture and always been an essential part of the human condition. through the work of one singular artist whose life and It is indeed an essential mechanism contributing to work has been devoted to reinventing, using his own culture – and nowhere more so than at the crossroads very contemporary personal language and necessary that has always characterised Iran, exporting ideas from and important memories, one of the deepest and richest within and importing from without. Reza Derakshani is cultural landscapes on earth? just one perfect example of an individual who, carried along by forces largely outside his control, has invented Reza Derakshani was born in 1952 in the small town a personal language of painting that brings together of Sangsar that was, nonetheless, the capital of the in a spectacular manner dreams that traverse all the eponymous province way to the north of Iran – a cultures of today. Ultimately, and happily for himself, mountainous region not far from the southern-most he has found creativity passing in and out of exile whilst reaches of the Caspian Sea. Like all of Iran it is full never losing a sense of his origins. The black tent he of cultural sites stretching back at least to the early claims he was born into, as it were under the stars, now centuries of the first millennium, a period that saw the more than sixty years ago, surrounded during the day birth of the ancient, in its time highly sophisticated, by fields of yellow and blue flowers, remains central to religion of Zoroastrianism that in its understanding of his painting. He has in turn studied and lived in Tehran the positive power of good and the negative implications but equally has spent much of his life, no less than of evil was certainly instrumental in the formation of the sixteen years, in New York, followed by periods in Italy, three great monotheistic religions. The region, too, over with all its magical cultural references, then back to Iran these long millennia, was full of legendary caravanserai from around 2001–2010, before moving to, of all places, – the stopping off courtyards on the southern silk routes Austin, Texas. Each of his homes inevitably imparts that, since time immemorial, have been responsible for strong cultural resonances; each place evokes intense both visual and oral traditions spreading from East to colour fields of memory, as well as existing in a vibrant West and West to East across the Eurasian landmass. and sometimes cruel present.

Before even turning to consider Derakshani’s paintings Iran evokes the world of magical woven precious carpets it is not surprising to note how he is himself a skilled that exist like gardens, exquisite painting, especially in musician, happy to play to audiences on those miniature form – think of the amazing pages of the Hamza beautifully long-necked stringed instruments such as Nama, that wonderfully figurative and spectacular the tanbor – an instrument illustrated in some of the series of luxuriously illustrated poetry made for the earliest Persian cultural monuments from the late Indian Moghul Emperor Akbar in homage to Persian

6 Misty Hunt (detail), Oil on canvas, 183 x 152.5 cm, 2015 7 art. This is a classic example of great art knowing no in the Persian miniatures that illustrate luxuriously political boundaries. The greatest Persian miniatures decorated volumes to which we have already inevitably are, of course, almost always decorated with human alluded to. One thinks of the poetry of the Shahnameh, and animal figures, as well as flowers. Even depictions the great epic poem by Ferdowsi, that in fact is, even of the Prophet himself are not unknown, putting pay to now, considered as the national poem of Iran, that the myth that Islamic art only is allowed to be abstract traces its history back to the beginning of time, down or ornamental. What it does demand, and what Reza to the birth of Islam. It is a poem that glorifies the hunt Derakshani gives us in full measure, is that mysterious and the horsemen where skill and prowess elevated the thing we identify as beauty, that infuses not only the visual Prince and those surrounding him. The problem that arts of Iran but also its legendary poetry; we might, for Derakshani addresses is the filtering of such cultural example, speak of the ecstatic Sufi love poetry of Rumi, memories, so alive and yet so distant for him, through as he is known in the Western world, and who was born what one might call the hazy glow of Western abstraction in 1209 in what is present day Afghanistan, but who was that has dominated image making for the last one very much a Persian poet. To pick one line at random: hundred years and more, but which, as in the case of ‘Love is the astrolabe of God’s mysteries.’ Equally, we its greatest exponents – Malevich, Kandinsky, Mondrian, can recall the poet Hafez, so beloved by Goethe, and Rothko – never lost the ideas of cultural memory of its translated by him in his famous West-eastern Divan Reza Derakshani, Red Green Hunt, 2015 creators. (1819). Both these poets of what we in the West think are Oil on canvas, 178 x 198 cm the primitive Middle Ages were masters of the Ghazal There is of course this all-over abstract skein that covers poetic form that sought to emphasise the equality of Derakshani’s paintings that have their own characteristic both divine and earthly love. It is possible to suggest tonalities, whether executed in red or blue, pink or green, perhaps that Derakshani’s paintings are striving to be even in black or white. Each canvas has its own specific Unknown Artist, Shirin’s visit, 16th century contemporary visual Ghazals in the way their mystical Gouache heightened with gold on paper, 32.8 x 22.8 cm sense of softness. In part they are perhaps inspired by and magical surfaces look to disguise in a sea of Topkapi Palace, Istanbul his confrontation with the art of Jasper Johns, even more abstraction dream-like narratives that represent human possibly by the work of Gerhard Richter’s romantic, activity in painterly fields of nature. almost post impressionist-like painterly abstractions, ostensibly but not necessarily very visibly dragged Derakshani paints series of large canvases as though over banal photography characteristic of – as Richter composing books for reading. We can interpret his himself sees it – a contemporary present. Derakshani’s hunting paintings that are especially to the fore in this method is perhaps more openly visible than that of exhibition as statements of luxurious beauty that has Richter’s but is nevertheless just as seductive in terms always infused the art of Iran – even if many Iranian of its intentional painterliness, and in contrast to the artists today understandably also wish to face other deliberately arbitrary banality of Richter’s imagery it realities. But this does not negate value of the search works to recollect his lost worlds which are genuinely for the dreams of past times and even strivings for a worth plaintively recollecting. possible romantic present. In the ambivalent diasporic world that Derakshani inhabits it is unsurprising he But the paintings become the means for Derakshani, wishes to cling to his roots with great tenaciousness. holding onto his lost worlds, through the language of It is in that sense we should understand the paintings contemporary art, to make more than merely souvenirs devoted to the theme of hunting – always an evocative or relics of lost ages. Of course those paintings from Wassily Kandinsky, Golden Cloud, 1918 romance of kings and warriors that has been a universal Reverse glass painting, 24 × 31 cm far away centuries or archaeological relics have huge theme in all past cultures, but which is a real constant The State Russian Museum, St Petersburg, Russia

8 9 value. However, new painting, made with the kind of intentional seriousness as those Norman Rosenthal (born 1944) is an independent of Derakshani’s, achieve their own form of memory and perfumed romanticism. They curator and art historian. From 1970 to 74 he was Ex- are really able in their own way to recall the feel of the princely hunt, the scent of the hibitions Officer at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery. pomegranate and the beautiful memories of the ancient Iranian picnic festivals, that In 1974 he became a curator at the Institute of Con- trace their origins to epochs long before the rise of Islam, just as our own Christian temporary Arts, London, leaving in 1976. The following festivals that dominate the Western world have their origins in Pagan solstice rites. year, in 1977, he joined the Royal Academy in London Derakshani gives his paintings titles that evoke the mental images he wishes to pass as Exhibitions Secretary where he remained until 2008. to the viewer, that arise from his personal history but also form part of a larger cultural Rosenthal is well known for his support of contempo- continuum. The words of one of the great Gezhals of Hafez, that this writer almost rary art, and is particularly associated with the German randomly alighted upon, can apply to the performative and painterly art of Derakshani, artists Joseph Beuys, George Baselitz, Anselm Keifer who himself could be speaking here: and Julian Schnabel, the Italian painter Francesco Clemente, and the generation of British artists that My heart breaks, ignorant am I, only a Dervish: came to prominence in the early 1990s known as the whatever happened to that wandering game? YBAs (Young British Artists). Like a willow, I shake, doubting my faith, my heart in the hands of an infidel beloved. Impossible dreams of colossal patience haunt my mind, alas, what is in the nature of the impossible thought? I love it! Those flirtatious lashes, killer of piety, undulating sweet drinking water with sting! A thousand drops of blood drip from the sleeve of a surgeon unless with skill he lays a hand on the wounded heart to stop it. To the tavern door I saunter, weeping and dejected: I’m ashamed of the fruits of my self. No life of Khezr, nor the kingdom of Alexander remains: why quarrel, dervish, about this fickle world? Not and hand of any beggar will reach that high, Hafez; find a treasure that surpasses that of Midas.

He is not unlike the legendary Iranian lover-heroes of poetry, Shirin, who hailed from Christian Armenia, and Khosrow, the Sasanian king, who were able to cross their faiths and beliefs together in the course of love. That is the basis of all true culture. It was ever thus, and must continue to be, even now in our own privileged present.

Norman Rosenthal London, January 2016

1The Poems of Hafez, translation by Reza Ordoubadian, Ibex Publishers, 2006, p.131.

10 11 Blue Hunting, Oil on canvas, 152 x 183 cm, 2015 Nocturnal Hunting, Oil on canvas, 198 x 224 cm, 2015 12 13 Hunting Pink, Oil on canvas, 122 x 244 cm, 2015 14 15 Untitled, Oil in canvas, 152 x 224 cm, 2015 Hunting the Ecstasy, Oil on canvas, 180 x 250 cm, 2015 16 17 Lost in Love, Oil and glitter on canvas, 190 x 190 cm, 2015 Hunting the Sunshine, Oil on canvas, 198 x 224 cm, 2015 18 19 Red Green Hunt, Oil on canvas, 178 x 198 cm, 2015 20 Sunset Hunting, Oil and glaze on canvas, 198 x 224 cm, 2015 22 Misty Hunt, Oil on canvas, 183 x 152 cm, 2015 Hunting Green, Oil on canvas, 183 x 152 cm, 2015 24 25 White Hunters, 224 x 198 cm, Oil on canvas, 2015 Blind Musician and the Lover King, Oil and glitter on canvas, 150 x 120 cm, 2015 26 27 Shirin and Khosrow, Oil on canvas, 152 x 183 cm, 2015 Shirin and Khosrow, Oil and glitter on canvas, 149 x 119 cm, 2013 28 29 Music for the Lover Queen, Oil on canvas, 183 x 152 cm, 2016 Music for the Lover King, Oil on canvas, 183 x 152 cm, 2015 30 31 Garden Party at the Red Castle, Oil on canvas, 188 x 168 cm, 2016 Red Dance at the Blue Party, Oil on canvas, 182 x 152 cm, 2015 32 33 Pometaphore, Oil on canvas, 244 x 152 cm, 2015 Pome Blue, Oil on canvas, 183 x 122 cm, 2015 34 35 Pome White, Oil on canvas, 244 x 153 cm, 2016 Pome Happy, Oil on canvas, 203 x 223 cm, 2015 36 37 Pome Red, Oil on canvas, 152 x 183 cm, 2015 Pome Green, Oil on canvas, 152 x 183 cm, 2015 38 39 Anari Gold, Oil and tar on canvas, 152 x 244 cm, 2015

40 41 Pome in the Dark, Oil and tar on canvas, 198 x 178 cm, 2015 Those Roots Drink Quietly! #2, Oil, tar and gold paste on canvas, 198 x 178 cm, 2015 42 43 My Light Wings!, Oil on canvas, 122 x 244 cm, 2016 44 45 She is Moving Gracefully, Oil on canvas, 92 x 183 cm, 2016 46 47 Crown Blue, 183 x 152 cm, Oil on canvas, 2016 Honour Blue, Oil on canvas, 183 x 152 cm, 2016 48 49 LIST OF ARTWORKS

Blue Hunting, Oil on canvas, 152 x 183 cm, 2015 Nocturnal Hunting, Oil on canvas, 198 x 224 cm, 2015 Hunting Pink, Oil on canvas , 122 x 244 cm, 2015 Untitled, Oil on canvas, 152 x 224 cm, 2015 Hunting the Ecstasy, Oil on canvas, 180 x 250 cm, 2015 Lost in Love, Oil and glitter on canvas, 190 x 190cm, 2015 Hunting the Sunshine, Oil on canvas, 198 x 224 cm, 2015 Red Green Hunt, Oil on canvas, 178 x 198 cm, 2015 Sunset Hunting, Oil and glaze on canvas, 198 x 224 cm, 2015 Misty Hunt, Oil on canvas, 183 x 152 cm, 2015 Hunting Green, Oil on canvas, 183 x 152 cm, 2015 White Hunters, 224 x 198 cm, Oil on canvas, 2015 Blind Musician and the Lover King, Oil and glitter on canvas, 150 x 120 cm, 2015 Shirin and Khosrow, Oil on canvas, 152 x 183 cm, 2015 Shirin and Khosrow, Oil and glitter on canvas, 149 x 119 cm, 2013 Music for the Lover King, Oil on canvas, 183 x 152 cm, 2015 Music for the Lover Queen, Oil on canvas, 183 x 152 cm, 2016 Red Dance at the Blue Party, Oil on canvas, 182 x 152 cm, 2015 Garden Party at the Red Castle, Oil on canvas, 188 x 168 cm, 2016 Pometaphore, Oil on canvas, 244 x 152 cm, 2015 Pome Blue, Oil on canvas, 183 x 122 cm, 2015 Pome White, Oil on canvas, 244 x 152 cm, 2016 Pome Happy, 203 x 223 cm, Oil on canvas, 2015 Pome Red, Oil on canvas, 152 x 183 cm, 2015 Pome Green, Oil on canvas, 152 x 183 cm, 2015 Anari Gold, Oil and tar on canvas, 152 x 244 cm, 2015 Pome in the Dark, Oil and tar on canvas, 198 x 178 cm, 2015 Those Roots Drink Quietly! #2, Oil, tar and gold paste on canvas, 198 x 178 cm, 2015 My Light Wings!, Oil on canvas, 122 x 244 cm, 2016 She is Moving Gracefully, Oil on canvas, 92 x 183 cm, 2016 Crown Blue, Oil on canvas, 183 x 152 cm, 2016 Honour Blue, Oil on canvas, 183 x 152 cm, 2016 Faith Blue, Oil on canvas, 183 x 152 cm, 2016 Faith Blue, Oil on canvas, 183 x 152 cm, 2016 50 51 TIMELINE

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2003 2008 2003 Caterina Pazzi Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome, Italy Just Paper, Leila Heller Gallery, New York, USA 6th Tehran Contemporary Painting Biennale, Museum of Con- 2014 temporary Art, Tehran, Iran Reza Derakshani, Opera Gallery, Seoul, South Korea 1994 Hope, Focus Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE Galleria il Punto di Svolta, Rome, Italy Reza Derakshani, Niavaran Palace Cultural Centre, Tehran, Iran 2013 2005 My Wicked Persian Carpet, Taymour Grahne Gallery, New York, Tarrahan Azad Gallery, Tehran, Iran Mah Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran 2002 USA Retrospective, House of Artists, Tehran, Iran 1993 2003 Reza Derakshani, Kashya Hildebrand Gallery, London, UK Lawson Gallery, Seattle, USA Assie Mennegini Gallery, Rome, Italy 1976 Tehran University Gallery, Tehran, Iran 2012 1992 1979 Reza Derakshani: Everyday & Every Night, Kashya Hildebrand Nour Foundation Gallery, New York, USA Lorry Dunn’s Gallery, Long Beach, USA 1995 Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland Montclair State University, Montclair, USA 1974 1977 Reza Derakshani: Black Sand Paintings, Leila Heller Gallery, Seyhoun Gallery, Tehran, Iran Thumb Gallery, London, UK 1994 NYC, USA Anzio City Hall, Anzio, Italy 1971 1976 Reza Derakshani, The Armory Show, Leila Heller Gallery and Ghandriz Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran Mehr Gallery, Tehran, Iran Jamm Art, New York, USA SELECTED PUBLICATIONS 2011 SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS SELECTED MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS Galerie Janine Rubeiz, Beorut, Lebanon Reza Derakshani; Selected Works, Preface by Sussan Babaie and 2013 2015 Roxana Zand (Patrick Cramer Publisher, Geneva, Switzerland, Circus of Life, Dar Al Funoon Gallery and JAMM Art, Kuwait Heavenly Paradise, AB gallery, Vienna, Austria Shattered Mirror, Shattered Music, Metropolitan Museum, New 2010) City, Kuwait York, USA Art of Iran, Opera Gallery, Dubai, UAE 2010 2013 And Diverse are their Hues, edited by Jonathon Bloom and Reza Derakshani, Osborne Samuel Gallery, London, UK 2012 Renoir to Damien Hirst, Seoul Art Center, Seoul, South Korea Sheila Blair (Yale University Press, New Haven, USA, 2012) The Rule and its Exception, Debora Colton Gallery, Houston, 2009 USA Reza Derakshani: Retrospective, The Salsali Private Museum, Reza Derakshani, Leila Heller Gallery, New York, USA Dubai, UAE Saeb Eigner, Art of the Middle East: Modern and Contemporary Cross-Current, Coburn gallery, Colorado College, USA Circus of Life, AB Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland 2011 Art of the Arab World and Iran (Merrell, London, UK, 2010) 2011 Show Off!, The Salsali Private Museum, Dubai, UAE 2008 Mah Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran Hamid Keshmirshekan, Contemporary Iranian Art: New Reza Derakshani, Leila Heller gallery, New York, USA 2010 2010 Hope!, Palais des Arts et Festivals, Dinard, France Perspectives (Saqi, London, UK, 2013) Beyond the Darkness, Khak Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran Made in Iran, Opera Gallery, Dubai, UAE 2009 2007 Tehran-New York, Leila Heller Gallery, New York, USA Iran Inside Out, Chelsea Art Museum, New York, USA Silence of the Night, Essay by Negar Azimi (Leila Heller, Reza Derakshani, XVA Gallery, Dubai, UAE New York, USA, 2012) 2009 2008 Reza Derakshani - Exhibition, Seyhoun Gallery, Los Angeles, L’Iran sans frontieres, Galerie Almine Rech Gallery, Paris, The Colour of Love, Farhangsara Cultural Centre, Tehran, Iran USA France My Wicked Persian Carpet, essay by Scott Indrisek (Taymour 2004 Grahne, New York, USA, 2013) 2005 Routes II, Waterhouse and Dodd, London, UK Gardens of Iran, Ancient Wisdom – New Vision, Museum of Con- Assar Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran temporary Art, Tehran, Iran Khosrow and Shirin Series, Dar Al Funoon Gallery, Kuwait City, Kuwait

52 53 SELECTED PRIVATE COLLECTIONS Collection of The Royal Family of Abu Dhabi, UAE Collection of Sheikh Zayed Ben Soltan ben Nahyan, Abu Dha- Collection of Leon Black, New York, USA bi, UAE Collection of Sam Bardaouil, New York, USA Farjam Collection, Dubai, UAE Collection of Mohammed Afkhami, New York, USA Salsali Collection at Salsali Private Museum, Dubai, UAE Collection of Saeb Eigner, London, UK Collection of Mr and Mrs Harandi, Dubai, UAE' Collection of Sting and Trudie Styler, London, UK Collection of Sheikha Paola Al-Sabah, Kuwait Collection of Athena Andreadis, London, UK Collection of Fereydoun Ave, Tehran, Iran Collection of Maryam Eisler, London, UK Collection of Goli Samii, Tehran, Iran Collection of Marjaneh Halati, London, UK Collection of Mr and Mrs Hatam, Tehran, Iran Collection of Vladimir Tsarenkov, London, UK Collection of Manijeh Khazaneh, Ca, USA SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Collection of Roshanak Varasteh, Paris, France Weng Fine Art Collection, Germany British Museum, London, UK Collection of Mr and Mrs Lancillotti, Italy Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA Collection of Roger Federer, Zurich, Switzerland Contemporary Museum of Art, Tehran, Iran Collection of Bruno Thomas Sinniger, Liechtenstein Pasargad Museum, Tehran, Iran

54 55 First published in 2016 by Sophia Contemporary Gallery on the occasion of the exhibition:

REZA DERAKSHANI The Breeze at Dawn 9 March – 23 April 2016

Published by SOPHIA CONTEMPORARY GALLERY 11 Grosvenor Street, London, W1K 4QB, UK www.sophiacontemporary.com

Photography by Roy Fox

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