Selected by Esther Lu
The mesmerising universe created in the collaborative work of Dubai-based Iranian artists Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh and Hesam Rahmanian (who also work independently of each other, with Rokni nominated as an ArtReview Future Greats in 2014) is a generous and generative one that accommodates and triggers senses of becoming in today’s troubled world. To unravel what seems to be a struggle with existing power relations, their theatrelike installations and staged videos are composed of unnameable characters animated by objects. Their performances often come to propose a new ethics among beings, objects and environments in a surrealist manner that is both penetrating and whimsical. By role-playing, crossdressing, and freely inserting freakish creatures and displays of their art collection, the sensory world they produce is rich with references to art history, commentaries on politics and fresh reinterpretations of everyday objects, breaking the boundaries between installation, sculpture, performance and painting, as well as blurring the separation between life and art. In their satiric compositions, familiar things yearn for unusual and innate values to project alternative possibilities for reality.
Their works engage on a bodily level, and encourage an awareness in an ambience corresponding to their own ways of living and working together in their combined home/studio. While gallery spaces are appropriated as a continuation and expansion of their life and practices, they take the question of representation to the next level: their critiques concerning the operations of the artworld, the perception of history and the media are not merely performative, but also take in the contests of their daily life. In the inspiring and persistent quest they have embarked upon to make art, everything is inclusive, and everything can be more.
Ramin, Rokni and Hesam are based in Dubai. Recipients of the Han Nefkens Foundation/MACBA Award, they will stage parallel exhibitions at the MACBA in Barcelona in October, and Callicoon Fine Arts, New York, in September.
From the Summer 2017 issue of ArtReview Asia, in association with K11 Art Foundation
