Today, we live in a new era of digital technologies, a time when many aspects of our lives are present on digital displays with image waves that transform life into passing images more than ever before. Visual arts have not been excluded from this pervasive process either, and digital technologies have resulted in new forms of art. The digital citizen and his art seem to be-more than ever before-in a state of profound and oblivious separation from the past. Thus, all of his actions, reactions, and interactions are focused on a fictitious future and in a hurry to move on from the present; and even if he has any interactions with the past, they either take on an air of contention or oblivion, or get stuck in the pitfall of a cliché nostalgia. Perhaps that is exactly why the humans of the digital age have no time to ponder the present and its bonds with the past, and for the same reason, they get no chance to contemplate the nature of things and phenomena.Just as they have gotten used to consuming and producing virtual images, they are constantly in a hurry to move on to the next image orte. hastily create a new but transient shock. Being contemporary to this rapid-paced reality seems challenging. Contemporary means a person that avoids the ideas of division in history anda definite separation from the past, but is also contemporary and present and a thinker- in the times that he lives in. The exhibition Paper: A Field of Revelation" contains pieces with various visual approaches and subjects, that belong to artists of different age groups and backgrounds, yet it is an accumulation of pieces that all somehow give the impression of an emphasis on the process of creation, and the time that went into fabricating the piece, the process of contemplation, perseverant practice, and revelation. The pieces in this exhibition show the internal relationship between the artist and the artistic material throughout the process of creating the piece. A connection that is not limited to an objective perception of the piece and the material, but aims to transform the way of thinking about the artistic material into a subjective agent, to create a context for respite and revelation that goes beyond the piece andimage. In reality, this can be a sign of the way the contemporary artist looks and thinks about a world where the shared reality of today is the urgency in an objective encounter with everything. On the other hand, paper is one of the most humble and easy-accessed materials available, which carries the humans' relationship with nature and history, and can also have a greater role than just a surface for the piece; the role of an active material and an agent for contemplation. Withtaking into consideration the carrier paths of the artists that have had this kind of encounter and coexistence with paper. this exhibition presents the extent of possible paths through which the humble medium of paper can be used to gain results beyond the ordinary and expected level. Results that invite the view not to simply watch, but to also contemplate their own relationship with what they see, with art, and with the world. This exhibition shows pieces that- in my opinion-have created a context for hesitation and reflecting by distancing themselves from the hasty and urgent conversations and observations; an archive of studies and discoveries made in solitude, to contemplations about the chaotic world. Surreal thinking about hybrid identities of contemporary man, to explorations into historical and cultural roots, and the artists' behavioral persistence for contemplation and revelation in art.
Behrang Samadzadegan