13 August – 6 September 2014
Guardian Angels: The Recent Work of Angela and Hossein Valamanesh The interconnectedness of everything – the stars, stones, leaves, things animate and inanimate – was considered by Italo Calvino in one of five undelivered lectures published posthumously in Six Memos for the Next Millennium. He reflected on the idea that everything that exists is comprised of endlessly circulating bits of matter which ‘a hundred million times . . . on the way to human shape, [have] been stopped to form now a stone, now lead, now coral, now a flower, now a comet ...’ From Mar y Knight ’s essay on Hossein Valamanesh, in the monograph Hossein Valamanesh: Out of nothingness. The sculpture Guardian, by Hossein and Angela Valamanesh, is an astonishing artwork. It is iconic in terms of its content and singularity, yet it has a strong sense of the everyday, through the central motif of the chair. The antlers, rising from the chair back - like lightning rods - give the whole a surreal and mystical turn. It is like seeing angel wings attached to someone in ordinary clothing. The footprints in the granite
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rock that supports the entire ensemble, earths us to the gallery floor, and by extension the planet. If I had to find a one-word description for this sculpture it would be “theatrical”. It is as if we are viewing something happening on a stage. It has the sparseness of Beckett, and the Shakespearean phantasmagoric is there too. But it also reminds me of Henning Mankell1 the great Swedish crime writer. Mankell, like the Valamaneshes, uses theatrical devices to make vast landscapes of the imagination appear intimate. In the opening pages of The Man Who Smiled, a solicitor is driving through the fog along a lonely road from a meeting with his wealthy client at Farnholm Castle.
Hossein Valamanesh has spoken about the influence of the theatrical on his life and work. In an interview with the artist Ian North, he said: ‘My involvement with theatre started from a sense of curiosity when I accompanied a friend to a Scout hall in Tehran, where he had joined a theatre group. I became immediately attracted.2 And elsewhere in that interview, speaking about art’s transformative effect, ‘I think it happens when the audience or viewer confronts an art work and nowhere is this more pronounced than in theatre. In the visual arts it is harder to hold the viewer’s attention and over the years I have tried to do this by the way I arrange the work within an exhibition. Of course, I hope the works in themselves have certain qualities that engage or seduce the audience.’
Suddenly he saw something in the headlights. He slammed on the brakes. At first he thought it was a hare. Then he realised there was something in the road. He turned his headlights on full beam. It was a chair, in the middle of the road. A simple kitchen chair. Sitting on it was a human-sized effigy. Its face was white. Or could it be a real person made up like a tailor’s dummy?
Angela Valamanesh is equally clear about her intentions and motivations. But where Hossein traps his creations in a spotlight, Angela pursues hers through microscopes and classical texts, in a way that would have delighted Italo Calvino. A few years ago she wrote that, ‘Images from early microscopes have become the focus of my PhD topic, and acknowledgement of the
sub-visible as an overwhelming part of our physical environment has a spiritual side to it. For me it represents a way of feeling at home in the world.’ Bring these two artists’ visions together and in time a contemporary masterpiece such as Guardian is created. It has the nailed down presence of a Picasso bull or a Bourgeois spider. But there is much else in this exhibition - their first in Melbourne for some time. There are independently made works, and there are other collaborations. There are videos, ceramics, drawings, sculptures, paintings, and works on paper. The output is diverse, but there is a unity to it, and seemingly no half-measure between strength and fragility. The titles help one recognise what was fashioned by whom. Angela, precise and descriptive, as in The Anatomy of Plants and Animals no.1; Observations no 4; Ova; or Small Creatures. Hossein, playful, and – yes – dramatic, Snakes and Ladders, No 3; Architecture of the sky, no.1; and the poetic Hasti Masti (Large). Some of these works are very recent. Others hint at what might come next.
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Both artists recently completed six-week research residencies in Washington DC. I’m intrigued to hear what will emerge from this intellectually and emotionally immersive experience. “Hossein had a Smithsonian Artist’s Research Fellowship,” Angela tells me, “and I arranged funding through VAB’s residency program. We did not have a studio, so just collected ideas for future works. I visited the Dibner & Cullman Libraries. They’re attached to the Natural History Museum and American History Museums and both have fantastic collections that include early scientific illustration. I’ve been interested in early images drawn with the aid of microscopes, dating from early 1600s. They’re the most beautiful drawings. The paper is aged, spotted, and mildewed. There were the flea and louse drawings of Robert Hooke, and many visual observations by Italian and Dutch naturalists. The librarians were a bit puzzled but really helpful. I could only take a pencil and notebook to the study rooms, although they were happy to scan anything for me. The result is, I have lots of ideas for new ceramic work, and works on paper, which I’m just about to start.” By contrast, Hossein was based in the Freer/ Sackler galleries of Asian Art. There he looked at Persian miniature paintings from the 15th 6
century. They are mainly illustrations of books of epic poems. And with his attraction for the theatrical, and sometimes cruel, gesture he plans to make a series of life sized photographic works, bringing some of the violent but beautiful images to life. These two important global artists have exhibited widely – individually, together, and collaboratively in galleries and museums in Berlin, Glasgow, Finland, Tokyo, Warsaw, Singapore, and all over Australia and New Zealand. Much has been written about them, but for those wanting a greater in-depth knowledge of what makes them curious about the universe, about each other, and about material ways of communicating their findings, I can highly recommend two fairly recent monographs on the artists: Angela Valamanesh, About being here by Cath Kenneally, and Hossein Valamanesh, Out of nothingness, by Mary Knights and Ian North (both published by Wakefield Press) Taken collectively, these books give both glimpses and deep insights into the lives of these intertwined artists who reach out alone, together. All life experience, as the Valamaneshes show, can in the hands and minds of sentient beings turn into creativity. Knights, who begins her beautifully constructed
essay evoking a conversation between Marco Polo and the Kublai Khan, as imagined by Italo Calvino sets the scene (again in a theatrically focused way), in her opening lines, ‘A fire blazes on a Persian carpet. Placed in a clearing in Australian bush at the edge of the desert, it implies home and a sense of belonging.’ But all belongings, no matter how deep, can have sudden endings. Thankfully, when Hossein suffered a heart attack in 1995 it marked a new beginning rather than an unknown transition. Faithfully, creativity was there when most needed. As Knights writes, ‘From The Heart (2004) also explores mortality. A luminous full moon seems to be suspended in infinite blackness. The silver disc, riven by deep shadows, shimmers and pulsates. As the seconds pass, the opaque surface thins into a translucent organic membrane threaded with veins. A heartbeat and a stanza from a poem by Rumi read aloud reverberate in the space. The thirty-second film was made with the x-ray images from an angiogram of the artist’s own heart captured on 35 mm film. Edited by Hossein with the couple’s son Nassiem, it is awesomely beautiful. The threading cardiac veins reveal the frailty of the human body and the narrowness of the gap between life and death.’
In the book on Angela Valamanesh, Kenneally describes how the artist “is reading Darwin’s Worms, thinking about evolution and about her own obsessions. Allowing instinct to guide her, she begins from images that exert a pull, ‘happy if (the result) accidentally tells a story’. That story seems, for all its modesty of intent, to be the creation story, the story of life on earth.” The story, the grand narrative, of the Valamaneshes. Dr Peter Hill 1. Knights, Mary, and North, Ian. Hossein Valamanesh, Out of nothingness, Wakefield Press, South Australia, p.12 2. Knights, Mary, and North, Ian. Hossein Valamanesh, Out of nothingness, Wakefield Press, South Australia, p. 87 For me Mankell remains the most interesting and the most compassionate of all the Scandinavian-noir writers, for two reasons. One is his social conscience, the other his sense of the theatrical. Both are connected through the six months he spends every year working with his theatre school in Africa in support of AIDS research. Dr Peter Hill is a Glasgow-born Australian. He is an artist, writer, and independent curator. He is an international correspondent for ARTnews (New York) and Artpress (Paris).
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Angela & Hossein Valamanesh On Reflection 2004 digital print on watercolour paper 180.0 x 70.0 cm edition of 5 $6,500 Another example of this work is held in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra.
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Angela & Hossein Valamanesh Guardian 2010 bronze and granite 170.0 x 82.0 x 110.0 cm edition of 3 $62,000
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Angela & Hossein Valamanesh What remains A 2012 Pearlex powder and gloss medium on stiffened felt 40.5 x 87.5 cm $5,500
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Angela & Hossein Valamanesh What remains B 2012 Pearlex powder and gloss medium on stiffened felt 40.5 x 87.5 cm $5,500
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Angela Valamanesh
Angela Valamanesh Various friends and enemies no. 2 2013 ceramic 94.0 x 103.0 x 8.0 cm (13) $12,000
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Angela Valamanesh The Anatomy of Plants and Animals no. 1 2013 ceramic 112.0 x 38.5 x 1.0 cm (14) $7,700
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Angela Valamanesh Various friends and enemies no. 5 2014 ceramic 39.0 x 60.0 x 9.0 cm (3) $3,300
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Angela Valamanesh Various friends and enemies no. 4 2014 ceramic 42.0 x 57.5 x 6.0 cm (3) $3,300
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Angela Valamanesh Ova 2014 ceramic 24.0 x 21.0 x 4.5 cm $2,200
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Angela Valamanesh Small creatures 2014 acrylic and casein on paper 110.0 x 110.0 cm $7,500
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Angela Valamanesh Observations no. 4 2014 acrylic and watercolour on paper 57.5 x 57.5 cm $2,200
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Hossein Valamanesh
Hossein Valamanesh Snakes and Ladders no. 3 2014 Casuarina saplings, gold leaf 210.0 x 210.0 x 14.0 cm (9) $44,000
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Hossein Valamanesh Breath 2013 bronze 143.0 x 140.0 x 5.0 cm edition of 6 $37,500
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Hossein Valamanesh Architecture of the sky no. 1 2014 lotus leaves on paper on plywood 120.0 x 120.0 cm $22,000
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Hossein Valamanesh Hasti Masti 2014 ink on paper 132.5 x 132.5 cm $14,000
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Hossein Valamanesh Where do I come from? 2013 digital print on canvas 95.5 x 217.5 cm edition of 6 $12,500
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Hossein Valamanesh No Love Lost 2013 bronze 15.5 x 108.0 x 2.0 cm edition of 5 $11,000
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Angela & Hossein Valamanesh What remains 2012 HD video 10 minutes looped edition of 5 videography: Nassiem Valamanesh $3,300
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Angela Valamanesh
Angela Valamanesh was born in Port Pirrie, South Australia in 1953. She completed a Diploma of Design (ceramics) at the South Australian School of Art in 1977, and a Master of Visual Arts at the University of South Australia in 1993. In 2012, Angela completed a PhD at the University of South Australia. She currently lives and works in Adelaide, South Australia. Angela has been exhibiting in Australia and overseas since 1978. Her most notable solo exhibitions include: Hossein & Angela Valamanesh, Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide (2012); Miscellaneous Items, Sherman Galleries, Sydney (2006). Angela’s more recent group
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exhibitions include: The Microscope Project, State Library of South Australia, Adelaide (2014); Heartlands: Contemporary Art from South Australia, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (2013); Abstract Nature, Samstag Museum, University of South Australia, Adelaide (2010); 2008 Sidney Myer Fund Ceramic Award, Shepparton Art Gallery, Shepparton (2008); City of Hobart Art Prize 2008, Hobart City Council, Tasmania (2008) and the Gold Coast Ceramic Award, Gold Coast, Queensland (2008). Angela has received numerous awards and achievements. Most prominent of these include: Australia Council for the Arts Residency, The Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC,
USA (2014); Arts South Australia Fellowship, South Australia (2011); South Australian Living Artist Monograph, About being here, writer Cath Kenneally (2009) and the La Trobe University Merit Award, Sidney Myer Ceramics Award (2008). Angela is well represented in public and private collections both in Australia and overseas. These collections include: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; The Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; University of Adelaide, Adelaide; University of South Australia, Adelaide; Artbank; Alice Springs Arts and Crafts Centre, Alice Springs; Aomori Contemporary Art Centre, Japan; Campbelltown City Art Gallery;
LaTrobe University, Melbourne; Shepparton Art Museum, Shepparton; Manly Art Gallery and Museum, Sydney; MacQuarie Bank, Sydney; Newcastle Regional Art Gallery, Newcastle; and Westpac. She has recently completed a residency at The Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC, USA supported by the Australia Council for the Arts.
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Hossein Valamanesh
Bor n in Tehran, Iran in 1949, Hossein Valamanesh immigrated to Perth, Western Australia in 1973. In 1970 Hossein graduated from the School of Fine Art in Tehran and in 1977 the South Australian School of Art, South Australia. Hossein currently lives and works in Adelaide, South Australia. Since 1972, Hossein has held numerous major solo exhibitions across Australia. These most notably include: Binns & Valamanesh, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Liverpool, New South Wales (2014); Hossein Valamanesh, GRANTPIRRIE, Sydney (2011); Time Travel: 1985-2009, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Melbourne (2010); Hossein Valamanesh, Sherman Galleries, Sydney (2006); Tracing the Shadow: Hossein Valamanesh Recent Works, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2002); Hossein Valamanesh: A Survey, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (2001); The Lover Circles His Own Heart, Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide (1994); Macquarie Galleries, Sydney (1993); Hossein Valamanesh 1980 – 1900,
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Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, Adelaide (1990); Bonython Gallery, Adelaide (1987,1983, 1981) and the Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide (1977). Throughout his career, Hossein has been included in a number of group exhibitions in both private and institutional settings. These include: Literary Notions, Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery, Bundaberg (2014); Heartland, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (2013); Handle with Care: 2008 Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (2008); Uneasy: Recent South Australian Art, Samstag Museum of Art, Adelaide (2008); Clemenger Contemporary Art Award, Ian Potter Centre, NGV Australia, Melbourne (2006); MCA Collection: New Acquisitions in Context, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2005). Hossein is internationally recognised as one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists. This has been reflected in his inclusion in solo and group exhibitions across the world. These
include: Australia, Royal Academy of the Arts, London, United Kingdom (2013); Breath, Rose Issa Projects, London, United Kingdom (2013); Hossein Valamanesh: Selected Works, Grey Noise Gallery, Dubai, UAE (2013); Ephemeral, Aomori Contemporary Art Centre, Tokyo, Japan (2008); 7th NICAF: International Contemporary Art Festival, Tokyo International Forum, Tokyo, Japan (2001); internal travel, National College of the Arts, Lahore, Pakistan (1999); Tracing the Shadow, Artfront and Hillside Galleries, Tokyo (1997) The Lover Circles His Own Heart, Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw (1993); Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (1991); Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran (1972). Hossein’s work features in several major public collections including: Alice Springs Art Centre, Alice Springs; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; Aomori Contemporary Art Centre, Aomori, Japan; Artbank; City of Melville, Western Australia; Edith Cowan University, Perth; Gryphon Gallery,
The University of Melbourne, Melbourne; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa; National Portrait Gallery, Canberra; Parliament House, Canberra; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; Sara Hildén Art Museum, Tampere, Finland; University of Queensland, Brisbane; University of South Australia, Adelaide; University of Western Australia, Perth; Wagga Wagga Regional Art Gallery, New South Wales and Wesfarmers, Western Australia. Hossein Valamanesh has recently completed a Smithsonian Artist Residency at the Freer Sackler Galleries in Washington DC, USA.
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Level 1/ 167 Flinders Lane Melbourne Victoria 3000 Australia +61 (3)9639 5855 info@kwgallery.com www.karenwoodburygallery.com Tuesday to Saturday 11 − 5pm