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Details
- Date
- 1997
- Media category
- Mixed media
- Materials used
- direct colour positive photograph, carpet, velvet
- Dimensions
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a - photograph, 99 x 99 cm, image/sheet
b - carpet, 215.5 x 322 x 1 cm, carpet incl. fringe
- Credit
- Contemporary Collection Benefactors 2002
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 207.2002.a-b
- Copyright
- © Hossein Valamanesh & Rick Martin
- Artist information
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Hossein Valamanesh
Works in the collection
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About
At the core of Hossein Valamanesh's art lies the relationship between humans and the natural world and a sense of place informed by cultural history and personal memory. Valamanesh was born in Iran in 1949 and trained as an artist in Tehran before immigrating to Australia in 1973. In 1974 he travelled with a group of artists and musicians through the Western Desert, visiting Aboriginal communities including Papunya and Warburton. Valamanesh felt a strong affinity with the cultural and spiritual connections to the land he saw in these communities and through this he began to connect to his new country, an experience which has had a profound impact on his subsequent development as an artist.
Valamanesh draws on Iranian culture, in particular on Iranian poetry and the Sufi poetic tradition. His own memories of Iran, growing up in the remote town of Khash near the Pakistan border and later living in Tehran, infuse many of his works. In 'Longing belonging', a photograph by Rick Martin of a Persian carpet burning in the Australian mallee scrub is presented behind the burnt carpet itself. This improbable event (the burning of the carpet) in an improbable place (desert scrublands) embodies the desires and disjunctions of finding oneself in a new land and integrating into an alien landscape. The ancient eroded lands of the Australian desert and the often dry landscape of Iran are not the same and yet for Valamanesh they have similarities and echoes.
The carpet suggests Iranian cultural traditions. Carpet designs are often of stylised flowers and fields, a landscape of the imagination. The carpet is partially consumed by fire in an arid landscape that has been shaped by fire over many thousands of years. This work embodies a sense of trying to locate cultures and the inherent violence of this process, of substituting one way of living for another and of the need to give up part of oneself in order to adapt to a new life. However, the flame is also cleansing; it suggests new possibilities. In burning through the central medallion of the carpet, it has left a dark and velvety void rather than just desiccated soil, a place of possibilities and imagination.
In 'Open book' 1993 (AGNSW collection), Valamanesh's interest in the metaphysical contradictions of Sufism is more apparent. Sufism is a particularly ancient form of Islam in which paradox plays a key role in understanding God and the human condition. In 'Open book', the blank pages of a book shaped like the outline of a human figure are displayed open before us. The book symbolises the textual inscription of ourselves, which is our cultural history, and the idea of humankind as a form of ‘blank verse’, waiting to be written. The title is a paradox: 'open book' is a phrase that means easily read or seen, and yet here there is nothing to read or see. Valamanesh has often used shadows and outlines of human forms to embody the experience of human identity and the metaphysical contradictions which shape our lives.
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Exhibition history
Shown in 9 exhibitions
(Hossein Valamanesh), Greenaway Art Gallery, Kent Town, 1998–1998
The Rose Crossing: Contemporary Art in Australia, Museum of Brisbane, Brisbane, 08 Sep 1999–23 Oct 1999
The Rose Crossing: Contemporary Art in Australia, Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong, 29 Nov 1999–20 Dec 1999
The Rose Crossing: Contemporary Art in Australia, Singapore Art Museum, , 10 Feb 2000–28 Mar 2000
The Rose Crossing: Contemporary Art in Australia, Sherman Galleries, Paddington, 28 Apr 2000–28 May 2000
Chemistry: art in South Australia 1990-2000, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 16 Sep 2000–05 Nov 2000
Hossein Valamanesh: a survey, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 29 Jun 2001–26 Aug 2001
Tracing the shadow: Hossein Valamanesh, recent works, Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia, 15 Feb 2002–28 Apr 2002
Fire dreaming, War Memorial Art Gallery, University of Sydney, Sydney, 21 Sep 2004–09 Dec 2004
Australia, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 21 Sep 2013–08 Dec 2013
Hossein Valamanesh and Vivienne Binns, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre & Liverpool Regional Museum, Casula, 19 Jul 2014–07 Sep 2014
When silence falls, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 19 Dec 2015–29 May 2016
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Bibliography
Referenced in 14 publications
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Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of New South Wales annual report 2003 [for the year ended 30 June 2003], 'Year in review', pg.14-35, Sydney, 2003, 18.
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Fiona Barbouttis, Foundation Newsletter #24, 'CCB comes of age', pg. 6-7, Sydney, Jul 2014, 6 (colour illus.).
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Edmund Capon, Apollo: the international art magazine, 'Lay of the land', pg. 36-42, London, Jul 2013-Aug 2013, 38 (colour illus.), 39. Feature: Australian landscape art
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Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre & Liverpool Regional Museum, Binns + Valamanesh, Casula, 2014, n.pag. (colour illus.). exhibition catalogue
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Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre & Liverpool Regional Museum, Generator/ Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, 'Vivienne Binns + Hossein Valamanesh', pg. 30, Casula, Jul 2014-Dec 2014, 20 (colour illus., detail).
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Mary Knights and Ian North, Hossein Valamanesh: out of nothingness, South Australia, 2011, 76-78 (colour illus.).
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Roy Marchant, Vivienne Binns + Hossein Valamanesh, Casula, 2014, n.pag. (colour illus.). educational kit
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Lisa-Marie Murphy, Look, 'Building the Gallery's collection', pg. 33-34, Sydney, Mar 2015, 34 (colour illus.).
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Connell Nisbet, Look, 'Acquisitive minds', pg. 23-27, Sydney, Dec 2003-Jan 2004, 27 (colour illus.).
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Laura Pia, Look, 'Poetry and memory: the lyrical art of Hossein Valamanesh', pg.10-12, Sydney, Feb 2010, 12 (colour illus.).
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Khaled Sabsabi, Look, 'The art that made me', pg. 23-25, Sydney, May 2017-Jun 2017, 25 (colour illus.).
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Daniel Thomas, Australia, 'Elizabethan post-colonial 1950-2013', pg. 226-288, London, 2013, 284 (colour illus.). cat.no. 201
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Sarah Thomas, Hossein Valamanesh: a survey, Adelaide, 2001, 3 (colour illus.), 23, 25 (colour illus.).
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Wayne Tunnicliffe, Contemporary: Art Gallery of New South Wales Contemporary Collection, 'Cultural memory, critical distance', pg.154-203, Sydney, 2006, 202, 203 (colour illus.).
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