Arghavan Khosravi in Uncombed, Unforeseen, Unconstrained: Collateral Exhibtion | Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, Venice, Italy

 For the duration of the 59th Biennale Arte di Venezia, 23 April to 27 November 2022, Parasol unit will present Uncombed, Unforeseen, Unconstrained, a group exhibition of works by eleven international contemporary visual artists at the Conservatorio di Musica Benedetto Marcello in Venice. 

The artists, Darren Almond, Oliver Beer, Rana Begum with Hyetal, Julian Charrière, David Claerbout, Bharti Kher, Arghavan Khosravi, Teresa Margolles, Si On, Martin Puryear, and Rayyane Tabet, all work in different media to address a disparate range of topics. Yet, common to them all is a deep concern for our world and a preoccupation with a comparable phenomenon that in scientific terms is defined as entropy, that is the measure of disorder, randomness, and unpredictability within a system.  

"Arghavan Khosravi’s philosophy of patience in difficult times as she expresses in The Anatomy of A Woman series of paintings, I understand that This Shall Also Pass. But when?

Arghavan Khosravi’s paintings are both compelling and uncanny, and their imagery inhabits a strange world that is simultaneously real and surreal.Often painted in vivid colours, these works intrigue us with their direct and realistic appearance. They promise easy access, yet their surreal aspect, which recalls the trompe l’oeil technique, leaves much to discover of a complex world beneath the surface. Khosravi was born in 1984, five years after the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and since 2015 has lived in the USA. Her paintings reveal something of the ideologies she has experienced, which collide with and fittingly incorporate her own natural reactions and reflections. Of her work, Khosravi says: My practice is intrinsically linked to my life experience, yet opens a space to recast memories and process the paradoxes of my childhood in Tehran, while alsogrounding my perspective as an Iranian now living in the USA. I see my work as a vehicle for shifting power, validating personal storytelling, and connecting to universal messages about human rights.

In Khosravi’s series of paintings, The Anatomy of A Woman, 2019,[pp.58-62] fromwhich we have selected a few works for presentation in Uncombed, Unforeseen, Unconstrained,the artist’s prime concern seems to be the situation of Iranian women in the current environment and perhaps, by extension, the challenges they face elsewhere in the world. This group of works was shown in Brussels in her 2020 exhibition, This Shall Also Pass, the title of which came from a well-known Persian proverb that calls for patience and discreet wisdom in times of crisis. In one painting, a woman looks anxiously out of a broken window. In another work, the front torso of a woman, bound over and over with red cord, also stands behind a broken window. Red cord appears frequently in Khosravi’s paintings, metaphorically referring to acts of suppression and oppression. 

Structurally, Khosravi’s paintings are often intricate and employ several wooden structures that form multiple picture planes. These three-dimensional constructions usually reference different stages or times within the narrative of a work. The artist constructs these pieces using shaped wooden parts on which she stretches a textile fabric before painting over them. An important source of inspiration here seems to be Persian miniatures which, although two-dimensional, are skilfully composed to show various stages and times within a narrative."

- Curatorial text by Ziba Ardalan, Founder, Artistic and Executive Director of Parasol unit.