The three main sculptures in the current exhibition resemble the remnants of a grand party; a puzzle of scattered pieces that simultaneously encompass many elements of Ramtin Zad's work to date. Despite their similarities to previous examples, these pieces have been rendered with such brevity and conciseness that arriving at a straightforward meaning or narrative is challenging. However, familiarity with Zad’s body of work can help and reveal the meaning behind them. For instance, the presence of dice within these sculptures alludes to the concept of life as a game - a combination of skill, luck, and fate - and in this way, these assembled pieces appear as the result of both choice and happenstance. To better understand these works, it would be worthwhile to consider the artist's previous installation at Etemad Gallery in Bagh-e Negarestan. In that installation, the viewer experienced a kind of joy reminiscent of encountering the circus scene from the story of Pinocchio, or the gingerbread house from the tale of Hansel and Gretel, where the significant absence of human characters also induces a sense of fear for their fate. From the installation at Etemad Gallery, only a few assembled sculptures made from scattered pieces are present in the current exhibition. The flowers growing on these sculptures hint at the decay and decomposition of these elements. Despite the decay of human symbols in these forms and the removal of their aggressive presence, nature itself has not remained unscathed. The taxidermy lion, from whose remains a flower has grown, is a significant reference to this issue. The gaping mouth in this arrangement, with its reference to the grotesque world of Zad's works, once again reminds us of the cycle of decay and downfall. The splattered paint on the peacock standing on another one of these forms, in contrast to a well-known painting by the artist in which this bird is depicted in full splendor with its feathers spread, evokes a sense of wounded pride in its representation of nature.

Zad's artistic language in recent years clearly shows a tendency towards a kind of abstract formality and brevity in expression. The result still retains narrative and symbolic aspects. From this perspective, even the resemblance of some of his paintings to abstract works reflects this decay and corruption in his artistic world. Following this logic, even the way his sculptures are constructed, which he consciously refers to as "handicrafts," carries ironic meanings. The form of the cake, while alluding to famous stories and referencing the carnivalesque atmosphere in the artist's work, simultaneously suggests the cycle of life. The arrangement of meaningful and diverse elements on a cake-shaped base, while insisting on the avoidance of any skilled and realistic craftsmanship, seems to be a critique of the idea of deception and showmanship, and an effort to expose it. In this manner, Zad's cakes can be interpreted in contrast to trompe-l'œil cakes, which are made to resemble other elements so realistically that they deceive the viewer about their true nature. It is as if the artist, by distancing himself from expertise and insisting on the handicraft quality of his works, aims to expose another lie. Here, too, Zad unwittingly reminds us of stories from the past. Stories from the history of art, in which artists sought to display their skill by creating a deceptive world that the viewer believed to be real. Just as Zeuxis, the legendary Greek artist, painted a bunch of grapes so realistically that birds flew towards them to peck at them, and the young Giotto, painted a fly on a portrait so realistically that his teacher tried several times to swat it away.

The dynamism of Ramtin Zad’s career, both in technical and expressive terms, has so far engaged his audience with each exhibition. Therefore, we should eagerly anticipate the next chapter in this narrative. Whatever the outcome, and even if his future creations take on more brevity and abstraction, it will still be possible to decipher their meaning by looking back at the artist's previous works.

Arman Khalatbari

September 2024