A review on “the Edge” Mahsa Karimizadeh’s volume exhibition
The Opposite Worlds
Avammag Website: Written by Javid Ramezani
“Dissatisfied with everything, dissatisfied with myself, I long to redeem myself and to restore my pride in the silence and solitude of the night.… strengthen me, sustain me, keep me from the vanities of the world and its contaminating fumes; and You, dear God! Grant me grace to produce a few beautiful verses to prove to myself that I am not the lowest of men that I am not inferior to those whom I despise.” Baudelaire, One O’clock in the morning.
The challenge of the mythical spirit of the modern world in the rapture of faith and life is teeming with the bustle of sorrowful existence. The anguish of the burden of being ,in such a way that a chronic suffering sickens soul, has no cure but beauty and rise within the boundaries of the galaxy and eternity of the inside and outside.
When we look out, an abundance of rules and notions mingle with the poetic sense of physics geniuses, and propels imagination to the inner depth of the body, regardless of what we call history and art. Exigency of being squeezes the human so strongly that a flood of questions flow.
To separate the viewer and the creator’s question is difficult, but both share the same source: the agony of being in the modern world. That was what I surmised visiting this exhibit.
What is a body and how do male and female attitudes toward it differ? Does the body perceive itself? How does wide mind define itself? What discourse do macrocosm and microcosm form? Bodylines is attention to the boundary of the two worlds, a boundary which is difficultly organized in modern man’s subjective view.
What I perceived through Mahsa Karimzadeh’s works was devoid of what we know through our reasonable judgement. On arrival at the exhibition, the viewer’s encounter with a huge volume, curvature of time and place in the shape of a painful pinch, is like a baby’s cry at birth. Her indifference to what happens within the boundaries of Iranian contemporary sculpture is modest and devoid of arrogance. Fluid volumes combined with needles and thorns painted red, are reactions to the external spread of touch of bodies.
The other group of these volumes had internal indication, were like the artist’s unbound inside, or perhaps let’s better say, had become fluid, and with their metal-like fluidity were flowing toward the eternal gravity of the earth as if they had risen with peace, simplicity and apathy. Expressive lines on the surfaces were more indicative of an obsession with the learned art or a memory of past artistic creations.
Karimzadeh’s daring in forming her philosophical imagination and getting rid of idea-oriented and superficial themes demonstrates her deep understanding of the inner space. What could hardly be sensed in her works so far was a mere subjective view. The artist’s direction of thought in the past was toward rational concerns in the face of the cosmos.
The artist has taken a big forward step in her evolution. Reaching simplicity and depth by getting rid of past professional fears has poured out her fluid imagination, creating a period of new works. The presence of feminine forms is a more indication of her awareness of female body rather than more emphasis on mere femininity. Perhaps, these kinds of works can be regarded as symbols of human’s inner cosmos.
These pinches are indicative of the appearance of a world occurring in the broad galaxy of the body, disappearing in a twinkling of an eye, painful curvatures which today’s scholars name parallel worlds and are doomed to black holes. Karimzadeh has passed the most difficult test in art: simplicity and self-esteem, and is on the verge of creating a personal tone. I dare say a style-owning artist in sculpture is rising.
