Pop-Up Clouds at Yassi Foundation
In 2019 and in collaboration with Yassi Foundation, Arash exhibited a series of his digital paintings and showcased mixed media installations in an event, which was titled “ Pop-up Clouds”. By conceptualizing his perception of urban spaces’ ambience in the post-internet era and glorifying his anti-commodity approach to the arts within the pieces, Arash yet again attempts to break through the representation loop which is embroidered in the art market.
Installation Views
Media
A Paranoid Cucumber/Mixed Media Installation With Audio
A living room, a mirrored shelf and a window were recreated in this architectural and interactive installation.The viewer can either enter the room or observe the installation from a staircase which is a component of the piece. A monologue is then played, during which a voice (a paranoid cucumber) recaps a traumatic event that took place in his childhood where the windows were shot at by an unidentifiable person.
About Arash
Arash Hanaei is an Iranian born artist who currently resides in Paris, France. He acquired his Bachelor of Arts in Photography from Tehran Azad University in 2002 and has ever since developed his own vision in order to manifest his apprehensions. He had extensively worked in the field of documentary photography (which he studied alongside Kaveh Golestan and Bahman Jalali) before being intrigued by other media . Abstaining from identity politics and his disdain for what he labels as “bureaucratic Middle Eastern art” were the drive behind his gravitation towards counter-narratives, alternative histories and speculative modes of thought. His work interrogates the political effects of images in public space. “Living in globalized, neoliberal and hallucinated cites makes identity politics more complex than who you are supposed to be for a market or infrastructure. It’s the micropolitics of how we survive in the age of digital knowledge and transitory politics that matter overall” he stated in an interview in 2017.