FARHAD AHRARNIA
NO SCHEHERAZADE
14 DEC 2024 – 28 JAN 2025
The exhibition title alludes to the legendary Scheherazade, narrator of The Thousand and One Nights. An Iranian princess trapped in a fated marriage, Scheherazade’s husband King Shahryar had vowed that he will execute a new bride every morning. So, for 1,001 nights, Scheherazade tells her husband a story, stopping at dawn with a cliffhanger, forcing him to keep her alive for another day.
The flip side of the 80s glitz -the specter of HIV and AIDS- haunted that decade and the early 90s. Haring was himself a casualty, but not before using his fame and brand recognition to bring attention to the epidemic. Diana, meanwhile, was the first high profile individual to bridge and go beyond what was a taboo and to humanize the epidemic. By using her hands, providing a sense of touch, she normalized the process of how to handle a person suffering from HIV.
For And God Saved the Queen, Farhad uses press images of Diana wearing her famous outfits, cropping the image to eliminate her face, instead focusing on her bold choice of blazer or dress, which in turn are embroidered with designs drawn from artworks of Keith Haring. It is so obviously Diana, that one does not need to even see her face to know exactly who it is. Likewise, the designs are obviously Haring’s.
In Touch, Composition with Left Hand, hands in different shades of wood taken from different kinds of tree, are superimposed on each other. Smaller wood inlaid works focus on individual fingers and thumbs, which appear to be cut, alluding to the cropping we see on the And God Saved the Queen.
Like A Prayer uses an intricate Iranian fabric, Termeh, ترمه, with Haring-inspired embroidered motifs, [using the ancient technique of Sermeh Embroidery, سرمه دوزی]- surreally deformed bodies and references to cutting, alludes to the 1989 track by Madonna, one of the singer’s most iconic, if controversial, singles.
Farhad Ahrarnia’s long standing interest in Saqqakhaneh, Constructivism and Surrealism come to the fore in a highly detailed, hand made and scrutinising body of work which touches, cuts and taps deeply into the collective memories of our times.
About Lawrie Shabibi
Lawrie Shabibi was founded in 2010 and opened its doors in early 2011 in Alserkal Avenue, located within the light industrial warehouse district of Al Quoz in Dubai. Following the relocation of several renowned galleries, this quickly became the hub of contemporary art in the region, and we have been a forerunner in the development of this contemporary art scene.
The gallery’s initial focus was on the practices of emerging contemporary artists from the Middle East and North Africa (the “Global South”), and in the last five years we introduced artists from other regions and generations, yet with the same focus on the “underrepresented”. A major focus remains the support of artists from the diaspora who create work in all media to explore issues such as identity, memory, history and socio-political issues specific to the diasporic experience.
(Source: https://www.lawrieshabibi.com/about/)
Opening hours: Monday – Saturday, 10am – 6pm
Address: Unit 21, Alserkal Avenue, Al-Quoz 1