An art gallery traditionally evokes concepts of something ethereal, breathtaking and beautiful — but what happens when art shatters that expectation and calls itself “grotesque?” The Grotesque Enframing, which ran from the end of October to Nov. 9 at Artfuss Art Gallery in Dallas, invited a less stereotypical expectation of the artwork within and encouraged viewers to find beauty in differences.
“Grotesque” was the byproduct of UTD Ph.D. candidate and artist Arash Ghahari’s ideas over the course of 20 years. Influenced by German philosopher Martin Heidegger and his thoughts on technological enframing, Ghahari’s goal was to create something beyond technology. He hoped to tie human life to the rapidly changing world and explore what lies beyond human life.
“This show is [a] personal reflection of what post-humanity is, in the age of modern technology,” Ghahari said. “My idea was to make something that [was] very poetic, making work [that] resists a structure.”
Inspired by rapid changes such as wars and impactful moments that can change people’s lives, Ghahari finds his work an expression of the accumulation of two decades’ worth of events.
“I was just making things because it was an expression of my inner self, I really liked them and I wasn’t sure why I was doing it,” Ghahari said. “The conceptual aspects of this work developed so much as I read more, saw other artists’ works, as [personal things] happened in my life.”
In the exhibition, audiences can see statues made of resin and steel that are upside down, and upon a closer look, their faces and bodies are degrading. Ghahari said this was purposeful, in hopes to share that some things in life may not be in their true place.
“I really wanted the audience to have that experience, where they feel like, ‘This is how I am actually feeling in my own life,’” Ghahari said.
The word “grotesque,” commonly defined as ugly or distorted, initially wasn’t a word that came to Ghahari’s mind. Rather, he thought his work just had a different aesthetic.
“It was beautiful for me, and it wasn’t until people told me it [looks] grotesque or these look terrifying, monstrous, different, alien, then I started [to] also see it in that way,” Ghahari said. “My [work] is not a negative way of looking at things, and I did not intend to make terrifying works.”
Some of his work has framing around it to evoke a picture frame, such as “The Persian Monster,” which features a double-headed bull in a rectangular encasing, while others simply are upside down, have long necks or are without eyes.
“I am trying to make it [so] that the works are not just normalized in a way that they are subtle, and people don’t remember them,” Ghahari said. “By becoming something that is out there, abnormal, unusual are all parts of grotesque. Monstrous qualities, and to be [a] monster for me is to be alive.”
Originally from Iran, Ghahari ties much of his art to his cultural heritage. Artists from Iran use their grotesque art as an expression of resisting the political system or as a weapon to have their voices heard. Ghahari said he wanted to represent that, and represent what grotesque art has come to be.
“I saw the gap, and wanted to use both sides, this is how grotesque started and this is the Iranian side, and as a person who lived in both cultures, I carry both sides,” Ghahari said. “There is an Italian term, sogni dei pittori, meaning space of dreams. I used that space of dreams.”
As a teacher of Intro to Sculpture at the Bass school of arts, Ghahari said he finds himself influenced by his students or his own life’s happenings in an oblique way.
“Sometimes if I hear something, and I see something, and some of [these ideas] end up having a place in my writing, or in my work,” Ghahari said. “Who knows, so much of this happens unconsciously, that I know that I am not in full control of myself in terms of my alter ego or my unconsciousness.”
Going forward, Ghahari hopes to finish his incomplete ideas and those that haven’t yet come into fruition. Upon completion of his Ph.D. he has his mind set on teaching and influencing the students he teaches.
“The whole theme of this [exhibition] is all about being abnormal, which is an attempt to become alive again, be human again,” Ghahari said. “Everybody goes to work, nine to five, same thing every day, and it’s very reductive. But you [see those] people who want to be grotesque and be strange in their dressing, the way they talk, and you see those people and remember them.”
