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untitled

untitled (2020)

The series Untitled results from photographing at random ,without looking into the camera (started from 2018). The camera is somehow autonomous: it becomes like a “third eye” that capture a direction, a moment and a composition that I would never catch. Then my role is just to select from thousands of snapshots without any modification. It is part of a reflection I’ve been having on the notion of free-will and try to get around imposed determinism. The final photograph leads to the Japanese notion of Ma 間 or negative space, as a gap in subjective perception.

paris5avril2020

Paris5avril2020 is a visual pause during the lockdown imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. A play on layers of reflectivity, the series includes images of neighboring windows that have been re-snapped from a computer screen.

(Re)Transmission of Memory

(re)transmission of memory

(project work in progress)

In Paris I live close to the Père Lachaise cemetery. A very good friend of mine, who died couple of years ago, is buried there. During my visit I cut a wild plant growing on the side of his grave, took it home and planted in a pot, a way for me to keep his presence with me. In a way, this process is one of metaphorical memory transmission: a body giving birth to a plant, that is transferred from a place of death to a place of life.
I later developed this idea through a conversation with friend of mine, Germano Cecere, who is head of a research team in genetics at famous scientific and medical research institute ‘Institut Pasteur’, in Paris. He studies mechanisms of epigenetics and inheritance. He explained to me that they were currently testing the hypothesis that chromosomic/genetic modifications taking place during our lives could be passed on to future generations: genes have a memory that can propagate to new individuals. I found this idea absolutely fascinating, and decided to make my own personal obsession with memory and his scientific research work together artistically. The title of the project is (Re)transmission of memory (working title), and intends to reflect on the omnipresence of the past in our present, and the relation with identity through excavation of memories.

Light-sensitive emulsion on paper

Cyanotype print on a piece of found wall, 55x40x7 cm, 2019

Light-sensitive emulsion on construction plasterboard

Expired médium format film

Cyanotype print on a piece of found unfold box, 60x35x1 cm, 2018

Cyanotype print on a piece of found wall, 80x80x5 cm, 2018

Cyanotype print on fabric, found objects, 150x100x30 cm, 2019

le radeau des cimes

le radeau des cimes
27.02.2020 – 02.03.2020 La villa belleville, Paris, France.
Exposition Collective de fin de résidencE.

Pooya Abbasian s’intéresse aux images qui s’offrent à lui. Venant du monde du cinéma, il collectionne sur son disque-dur aussi bien des images documentaires que des photos simplement capturées avec son appareil photo au fil de ses pérégrinations. La première étape d’accepter ces visuels enregistrés pour ce qu’ils sont – des compositions – lui permet d’annihiler la relation paradoxale qui existe entre image et réalité. Inspiré de la technique du cyanotype, un procédé d’impression alternatif, il joue par négatif photographique à projeter une image qu’il définit lui-même comme banale sur une surface, céramique ou plaque de plâtre de construction. Il semble en définitive que l’image se produise par fraction — pour une image inscrite dans l’espace, mille autres images peuvent littéralement en naître — et effraction — par dépendance et émancipation, voire détournement, d’une économie visuelle qui domine nos modes de perception et nos schèmes cognitifs.

Depuis une trentaine d’années, le biologiste Francis Hallé navigue sur de véritables océans verts. Depuis la canopée des forêts primaires, il observe, découvre, dessine et analyse les plantes, les arbres, les végétaux et les relations qui les animent. Se poser sur le toit de la forêt lui permet un accès privilégié et inédit à l’ensemble de sa biodiversité, qui est reconnue comme étant la plus riche au monde. Le radeau des cimes est le nom donné à ses expéditions scientifiques, c’est également le nom donné à l’ouvrage qui retrace cette incroyable aventure.
Il s’agira donc d’emprunter au monde végétal un type d’organisme bien particulier, autotrophe et photosynthétique, afin de penser l’exposition comme un véritable bouquet d’artistes épiphytes. Ces plantes, à la manière d’une communauté en résidence, évoluent sur un principe de coopération. Leur caractéristique principale étant qu’elles s’épanouissent en collaborant avec l’arbre ou la structure qui les accueille. Penser une résidence à la Villa Belleville comme un écosystème permet alors de révéler les subtilités les différences et les complémentarités de chacun. L’espace d’exposition rend ainsi compte d’un terrain fertile, propice à une création en perpétuelle mutation.
Au-delà, cet environnement de vie et de travail si spécifique, dans une idée d’ateliers partagés où se rencontrent les pratiques et les personnalités, se doit de signifier au sein de l’espace d’exposition les confrontations et frictions, les échanges et porosités qui existent entre les œuvres dont en résulte un enrichissement partagé.

Dimitri Levasseur

Projéction de vidéo, émulsion photosensible sur céramique, 20x15x0,5 cm, 2020.

Vue d’atelier à la Villa Belleville, Paris, France.

Impression sur plexigass, 20×15 cm, 2019.

Impression sur trois niveau de plexiglass transparent, 20×17 cm, 2020.

Émulsion photosensible sur céramique, 20x10x0,5 cm, 2020.

Émulsion photosensible sur carton, gouache, 28×20 cm, 2019.

Émulsion photosensible sur céramique, 15x10x0,5 cm, 2020.

Émulsion photosensible sur placo de construction, 30×18 cm, 2019.

Émulsion photosensible sur placo de construction, 30×20 cm, 2019.

Émulsion photosensible sur placo de construction, 30×30 cm, 2019.

Émulsion photosensible sur céramique, 17x10x3 cm, 2020.

Émulsion photosensible sur céramique, résine, 11x5x3 cm, 2020.

Vue d’atelier à la Villa Belleville, Paris, France.

Émulsion photosensible sur céramique, résine, 10x4x1 cm, 2019.

Émulsion photosensible sur céramique, 2019.

Vue de l’exposition Le Radeau Des Cimes, VillaBelleville, Paris, France.

lumen

lumen, 2018-2020
Fraction/break-in of the image

The Lumen series by Pooya Abbasian offers a particularly original visual experience and technique. It requires meticulous attention, perhaps a moment of visual pause. Immediately these images question us through their spectral presence, at the limit of the visible, as a consequence of their fabrication process, their genesis. They result in fact from a video projection made on photosensitive paper, itself scanned, before the evaporation of the image-trace left by the projection, in order to make an image-imprint of it, which the artist finally fixes by printing it on a plexiglass support – the final support being in turn conducive to a series of reflections, dissensions and visual dilations.

So from the power of the initial video projection, to the sensitivity of the paper that captures its trace, passing through the printing technique on plexiglass, each of these factors adds a potential track to capture the image and at the same time blurs our real possibilities of finding a path towards it. The image as point of origin or point of departure mutate to become a sort of moving sand or magnetic fields, whose fragile crystallization “exposed” here can take on a new value: that of an image that is both material and immaterial and which is nevertheless stated before us like a sculpture (not fixed to the wall) or a body in space, at the limit, totally decontextualized from the technical ecosystem that saw it born.

The latter can be linked as much to Man Ray’s rayographs as to Duchamp’s Grand Verre, or even to Stan Brakhage’s cinema, while questioning the current conditions of visibility and image storage, within the big data economy. Pooya Abbasian opposes his images – sublime residues, rejections or even counter-data – to the hegemonic structure of what is visible online. This “accursed share” of the digital image, soon to be promoted to the rank of art, in the same way as the Lumen do in front of us, is expressed through unfathomable and unidentifiable images for the production system in which they are yet produced – it is the part of controlled or repeated chance that the artist leaves to the machines he uses such as video projector, scanner, printer etc. We almost forget that a documentary image of the explosion of an oil tanker or a crater of drought in Iran was at the origin of the emanation or the visual smoke which escapes in front of us; like the laughing gas that is now escaping from the Arctic as a result of global warming.

Ultimately, it seems that the image develops through fragmentation – for an image inscribed in space, a thousand other images can literally be born – and break-in – through dependence and emancipation, even diversion operated upon a visual economy that dominates our modes of perception and our cognitive patterns. In times characterised by a constant visual and multimedia stimulation, it seems that this work addresses precisely our hyper-fragmented memory. Pooya Abbasian’s Lumen operate at a point of entanglement, in tension between intimate and personal memories and the memory of “found” or “captured” images (online, in the media, around us …).

Morad Montazami

Installation of 9 plexiglass sheet(each 180x90x12 cm), Vidéogram UV reprinted on transparent plexiglass, 2020.

To launch satellite into orbit, print on plexiglass, 270×180 cm, 2019.

Sanchi, print on plexiglass, 270×180 cm, 2019.

about

I am an Iranian artist based in Paris since 2011. My practice unfolds through photography, Film, drawing, and installation.

Time spent working with filmmakers has influenced the way I consider and question the construction, dissemination, and reception of images. I aspire to make these processes visible but also to construct my own visual fictions.

Today I am interested in the images that are offered to me. I collect documentary images found on the internet or in films as well as photos simply captured with my camera during my wanderings. I consider these recorded visuals for what they are—compositions—in order to divert the paradoxical relationship that exists between image and the idea that we have of reality/verity.

The interplay between mediums, the transition from one state to another, has become central to my practice. This sensibility might stem from a life lived between multiple worlds, shaping an approach where boundaries dissolve and overlaps become opportunities. It’s a process that has led me to explore installation and, more recently, film, seeking out spaces where materials and techniques intersect in unexpected ways. In earlier years, my work was more explicitly engaged with themes like exoticism and self-representation, but the passage of time has introduced new layers, shifting focus towards the subtleties of what lies in-between.

It seems to me that the image is produced by fraction—for an image inscribed in space, a thousand other images can literally be born from it—and by effraction—by dependence and emancipation, even detour, of a visual economy which dominates our modes of perception and our cognitive schemes.

Ambiguities and transitory states interest me more than affirmations. It is in this state of mind that I seek bridges between mediums and continually test new techniques. I look for the poetic accidents that result from these marriages, which I compare to black holes opening up to horizons to be explored.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024 • Maltournée,
MEP (Maison Européenne de la Photographie), Paris, France.
2022 • Œil pour œil,
Frac Île-de-France Le Plateau (La Vitrine), Paris, France.
2018 • Discreetly Living Behind Your Face,
Galerie 52, Folkwang-Uni, Essen, Germany.
2018 • Discreetly Living Behind Your Face,
Galerie petits carreaux, Saint-Briac, France.
2017 • Telesm,
kultur kapellen, Pictoplasma festival, Berlin, Germany.

DUO EXHIBITIONS
2022 • Pooya Abbasian XX Grand8,
La Generale, Paris, France.
2021 • RCO,
La Marbrerie, Montreuil, France.
2011 • Nature Regulate,
Mohsen Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran.
2010 • Aklil-al-Molook,
Mohsen Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran.
2007 • Exopalasht,
Azad Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran.
2006 • Related-Unrelated,
Tehran Artists House, Tehran, Iran.

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024 • Photo Saint-Germain,
Galerie John Ferrere, Paris, France.
2024 • MAD(Made Anywhere),
Fondation Fiminco, Romainville, France.
2024 • La logique des lieux,
Fondation Fiminco, Romainville, France.
2024 • Faire image,
Galerie Michel Journiac, Paris, France.
2024 • Nord-Est,
Poush, Aubervilliers, Paris, France.
2024 • La Box une première histoire (1990-2024),
La Box, Bourges, France.
2024 • Soli Loci,
LaTour Orillon, Montreuil, France.
2024 • Courser l’Été – Territoires Buissonniers,
Placement Produit Paris, France.
2024 • Let us try to assume our fundamental ambiguity,
Poush, Aubervilliers, France.
2024 • Art93,
Poush, Aubervilliers, France.
2012 • Dip into the Bleu,
Maison Touchard, Luxembourg, Luxembourg.
2021 • Memento,
Zeto project space, Paris, France.
2020 • En Être,
70ème édition de Jeune Création, Romainville, France.
2020 • Le radeau des cimes,
Villa Belleville, Paris, France.
2019 • En Cas de Pluie (hors les murs de Jeune Création),
Friche étex, Paris, France.
2018 • Artvilnius,
Litexpo, Vilnius, Lithuania.
2016 • Face à Face,
Association La Source, La Guéroulde, France.
2013 • Cousu Main-le temps passé,
Galerie des petits carreaux, Paris, France.
2013 • Art On Paper,
la Gare Maritime, Bruxelles, Belgium.
2013 • Interdit aux mineurs,
Galerie des petits carreaux, Paris, France.
2012 • Slick,
Le Garage(haut-marais), Paris, France.
2012 • Jaunes,
Galerie des petits carreaux, Paris, France.
2012 • AnimaFac Festival,
Grande Halle de La Villette, Paris, France.
2010 • Window,
Mohsen Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran.
2010 • Military service,
Mohsen Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran.
2007 • 9th visual arts biennial,
Contemporary Art Museum, Tehran, Iran.
2006 • Limited Access,
Azad Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran.
2006 • House of Drawing 1st Gathering,
House of Drawing, Tehran, Iran.
2006 • 8th visual arts biennial,
Contemporary Art Museum, Tehran, Iran.

RESIDENCIES
2024 • Design Person, Nagoya, Japan.
2023 • Fondation Fiminco, Paris, France.
2022 • SHIFT, amac, Paris, France.
2021 • Drawing Factory – Cnap, Paris, France.
2020 • La Box ENSA, Bourges, France.
2019 • Villa Belleville, Paris, France.
2018 • Galerie des petits carreaux, Saint-Briac, France.
2017 • Association La Source, La Guéroulde, France.
2016 • Association La Source, La Guéroulde, France.
2014 • Forum des images with Arte, Paris, France.

GRANTS
2024 – la MEP Permanent collection,
for the film Maltournée, Paris, France.
2024 • Production grant
Fondation Françoise pour l’art contemporain.
2023 • Production grant
Fondation Fiminco, Paris, France.
2021 • Production grant (Wim Wenders Foundation),
Institut Français / Goethe Institut, France, Allemagne.
2020 • CNAP (French National Contemporary Art Collection),
Permanent collection for Lumen series, Paris, France.
2019 • CNL Bourse aux auteurs,
For the book Les Secrets de Sinavar, Paris, France.

TALKS
2022 • Talk at IESA,
(Ecole internationale d’arts et culture) Paris, France.
2021 • Talk at ENSA,
(école de beaux-arts) Bourges, France.
2018 • Talk at Folkwang-University,
with Gisela Bullacher, Essen, Germany.
2018 • Parrain de la Nuit de la lecture,
Ministry of Culture, Paris, France.
2017 • Intervention for Little Villette festival,
La Villette, Paris, France.
2017 • Talk at Bétonsalon,
Center for Art and Research, Paris France.
2017 • Conference at Pictoplasma Festival,
Berlin, Germany.
2016 • Intervention at Centre Pompidou,
On Abbas Kiarostami, Paris, France.

BOOKS (AS AUTEUR/ILLUSTRATOR)
• La Petite Vague Bleue,
published at Gallimard Jeunesse.
• Les Secrets de Sinavar et autres Contes d’Irân,
published at Gallimard Jeunesse.
• De Lamour, Fragments d’un Discours Scientifique,
published at Actes sud.
• Terres et Hommes,
published at Actes sud-Junior.
• Les Poulpes, futurs maitres du monde,
published at Actes sud-Junior.
• L’incroyable aventure de la génétique,
published at Nathan.
• Sonnette entre Chien et Loup,
published at Gallimard Jeunesse.
• Mes Amis Monstres,
published at Actes sud-Junior.
• Un Arbre pour Ami,
published at GallimardJeunesse.

PUBLICATIONS
• Maltournée,
MEP (Maison Européenne de la Photographie).
• Une révolution iranienne : Femme, Vie, Liberté,
Beaux-arts de paris.
• Contemporary Iranian Art,
New Perspectives by Hamid Keshmirshekan.
• Signing Tehran,
Eine Designreporteage by Julia Kahl.
• Urban Iran by BirAnna Olson.

SELECTED PRESS
• Arté • British Journal of Photography • Étapes
• France Culture • France Inter • Interview Magazine
• Kaltbult Magazine • Journal des arts • Libération
• L’Œil Magazine • Premiere • Telegramme

COLLABORATIONS
• Centre Pompidou
• Jafar Panahi
• La Cinémathèque Française
• Les Films Pelleas
• Maison Margiela
• Universal Music
• Zaman Books Curating

discreetly living behind your face

discreetly living behind your face
20.04.2018 – 11.05.2018 Galerie 52, Folkwang-Uni, Essen, Germany.
14.04.2018 – 25.06.2018 Galerie des petits carreaux, Saint-Briac, France.

The exhibition Discreetly living behind your face results from a project undertaken by Pooya Abbasian for more than 5 years and concluded during his residency at Galerie des petits carreaux in Brittany, France. His approach, both sensible and plastic, opens up a reflexion on social norms and the search for an identity through alterity.

Inspired by the cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky and José Luis Guerín, his work challenges photography and plays with the grid driving images’ creation and diffusion. Using a singular process – analogue pictures printed thanks to a video-projector, he intends to find his way beyond technical binaries. Both a eulogy of the contemporary pixel and a reclaiming of the old cyanotype method, he intends to preserve the digital trace on analogue prints. Maybe more of a painter than a photographer, Pooya Abbasian celebrates the poetry of the poor image, a blurriness that makes room for imagination. Original prints, pictures found on the internet and film shots make up a very personal iconography, freed from genre imperatives.
Possible narratives, fantasized stories; the exhibition keeps the mystery going. Taken on the sly, from the back, and playing with environmental constraints, the pictures are the impressions of a benevolent voyeur. The poetry is to be found in his obsession for keeping his models’ identity secret: he is not interested in the verdict given by face features but rather by the harmony of neck’s lines. Seeing without really knowing creates the sense of great tenderness that emanates from his work. Pooya Abbasian’s approach is voluntarily out of focus. It is a search for indeterminacy. What face? But also: what identity? These questions feed negatively the visitor’s own fantasy.

The face is the window on consciousness. For Emmanuel Levinas, the ethical imperative arises through it: it is the outbreak of the Other to my subjectivity, as well as the ban of violence. Judith Butler expanded the definition to the back, through which the face is abstractly represented. In this way, Discreetly living behind your face hesitates between carnal figuration and soul abstraction, it is an attempt to express the unexplainable, the enigma of alterity and the construction of our gaze. A powerful cyan blue depicts the poetry of a relation both solitary and deeply informed by the Other. A story of missed encounters.

Clémentine Proby