Galerie Felix Frachon - Booth A206
Tahmineh Monzavi, Past continuous series , photography, 110 x 75 cm, Edition 6/7, 2017, Courtesy of Félix Frachon Gallery and Tahmineh Monzavi
For this edition of Asian Now, the Galerie Félix Frachon presents two Iranian and one Indian artist.
From these three very different practices, we can clearly see the questioning of these three women on the gaze: the gaze of others, of themselves, or the gaze of the society in which they grew up.
Time is intrinsically linked to these views. The passing of time deepens the differences and modulates the perception of oneself and of others.
The clouds of Toufan, an Iranian artist based in Brussels, are like unfinished thoughts, like nascent reflections on representation and bodies. These stitched yokes are reminiscent of children's drawings, with simple, round, joyful, almost dancing shapes. However, her characters are strongly sexualized, but is it not our looks, our age that influence us in this sense?
Ratna Gupta, an Indian artist, thus questions the absence in the relationship to oneself. Spending long weeks voluntarily alone, without seeing or talking to anyone, she manages to create a time for herself, absolute, private, and aware of its impact on herself. From this experience, Ratna leaves us an envelope, a chrysalis from which she would have separated. In this time of absence and total solitude, Ratna created a double, a sculpture that oscillates between absolute disembodiment and undeniable presence.
Finally, Tamineh Monsavi, an Iranian artist based in Paris, presents a piercing work, bright, deafening ... but especially insolent in the eyes of Iranian society. Across the Middle East and armed only with her camera, Tamineh depicts war and its aftermath, raw life, its violence, and the infinite beauty of the dignity that remains and survives everything. Everything explodes, except the self, no matter its identity, its colors, its country or its religion. Whether it presents the rebus of society or the dunes of a Sahara that several countries are fighting over, we see here a man who assumes himself, who seeks recognition, and there, the voluptuous forms of the dunes, symbols of female bodies too often trampled, soiled, so little respected.
Through this presentation, the Felix Frachon Gallery wishes to challenge your gaze. Take the time to observe these works, and become aware of the change that takes place in your perception of them.