Description

2012 Acrylic on canvas 210 x 220 cm, polyptych 550x5800 px This piece is the first in a group of three paintings all sharing the same title. Siavash Talaei's artistic approach seems like an archaeological excavation, with an aim to reveal the lost remains of some unknown and incomprehensible, long-forgotten sequence of events. His strategy appears to provocatively disregard every expectation of the viewer's by adopting the figure, extracting it from its context, and reproducing it with the same emotional indifference; this characterises his unromantic style. One of the victims from the Sardasht chemical bombardment is pictured, in this painting.The direct and calmly dispassionate way in which the victim regards his invisible viewer, which his gaze may be, amounts to a refusal to be somehow "significant": It seems that he addresses the war by avoiding it, and he avoids it by addressing it.