By Javid Ramzani (Art Critic) / Shargh Newspaper / Wednesday, July 24, 2022 / Issue 4335
Perhaps violence brings about a tragic aspect of living, as we say, “Life is tragic from afar and comic up close.”
I went to see Roozbeh Namati Sharif's works at Soo Gallery on a summer afternoon. I must admit I was doubly curious about his works because I was familiar with his late father's art as well...
The theme of the exhibition was violence, and the title was "End of Immortality." Immortality is violence, from the earliest days of civilization, or more accurately, before civilization, violence has always existed in many forms as they still are; organized violence, psychological violence, violence for social engineering, violence to enforce laws, violence to sustain life, and so on.
Approximately 60 sculptures, paintings, and bas reliefs were on display on the three floors of the Soo Gallery. I felt good as a viewer with a full sense of discovery and having an experience for my eyes and my rational powers being fed with subtleties lying between form and color.
Sharif is a nostalgic artist who has tender emotions about his father; a father who worked for children and paid special attention to children. With a specialist's view, one sees that the path of the son is very different from the father, particularly in the paintings of his father, which have no connection with the colours and fantasies of the son’s sculptures.
The sculpture represents its understanding of the material employed by the artist, and this was not the only distinctive feature between father and son; it was also evident in the use of modern and different materials by the son. The son’s precise and somewhat academic work bring him closer to the realm of an artisan. The artistic and accurate treatment of Roozbeh's works is a testament to the power of using material in harmony with the expression of his works and in the aesthetics material-harmonious theme and aesthetics. The diversity and continuity of the artist’s narrative is commendable.
Using realistic colors and forms creates a powerful force out of tragedy for the viewer. Amidst these colors, the audience becomes familiar with its most painful sensations of an insecure, glittery and luxurious modern life and the terrors that perpetually enrage humans. To quote Christov, “A state of nausea has been managed and the threat of a new world like the sword of Damocles is recognizable, even in Disney cartoons in a world that even dares to take away our grumpiness and that also attempts to make us forget our role as losers with our smiling selfies taken while being tourists.”
We have forcibly become complacent. We eat fancy breakfasts and live in fancy places as the earth is being destroyed by us... and we report all our excesses on Instagram. We live on the stage of life and are only responsible to our audience, all without being seen in our own showcase. We are losers.
The order of the exhibition, a globally steering project, initially brings goods to the showcase. Nowadays, the producer of goods must be inside the showcase so that for every moment we are, in a way, computer technicians even while sleeping. These feelings will be the result of our encounter with Sharif's exhibition... From obese prosperity to humiliating fear...
Portraits with closed eyes and a world of dreams of waves, speared purple whales, bleeding unicorns and so on. Difficulty describing these sculptures in the framework of mere words shows the greatness of the subject matter. But the audience, in its first impact, becomes engulfed in fluorescent colors and capsizes the pleasure from these colors into a painful bitter cold.
Roozbeh Namati Sharif has studied industrial design and art research at the graduate level. He has turned to sculpture in the absence of his father while remaining a student of his father, as sons tend to develop the legacy of fathers in Iranian art traditions. Roozbeh has a special and profound worldview that will indeed mark the beginning of a serious era in contemporary sculpture.
