PREVIEW OF HASSAN VAHEDI’S SERIES “STRANI GIORNI” (STRANGE DAYS)

Strani giorni (Strange days): A series of Works Produced by Hassan Vahedi in the Weeks of the Lockdown

 

The emergency taking place these past months did not disrupt the daily activity of the artist. As a matter of fact, Hassan’s days were marked by the usual routine of painting, drawing and etching. Yet, these are strange days of sirens and silences, the echo of which could not but flow into his artistic production.  Current events have always been present in his work, I am thinking, for example, of his large canvasses crowded with faces, corresponding to the crowded images we were getting from the 2019 demonstrations in Chile. Faces that immediately assumed a universal character, protests that become the image of all the crowds that flowed into the streets of the world.  Likewise, once they are arranged into a painting, the words that have been pounded into our heads these weeks afford the observer a chance to recall something more: isolation, distance, disinfection  are words that orient thought towards the opposite, something more complex that can be generalized and yet is not at all generic. In their symbolic precision, these Strange Days remind us that we are fiery bodies crossing other bodies, that we are inhabited by other life forms, that we play host to viruses, microbes and bacteria, that we are surrounded by an aura that precedes and follows us.  We may dwell in closed spaces but they are inhabited, we have around us sweeping vortices. Our hands are fiery, our solitude is boundless.

 

For a link to the Italian version in Hassan Vahedi’s blog  with expanded gallery, please click here