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Martina Johnston Gallery

February 12 - March 28, 2011

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1201 Sixth Street, 2nd Floor
Berkeley, CA 94710 Berkeley, CA 94710
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Unbelievablybelievable Ali Dadgar, Beaute, Pigment and Acrylic on Board, 12" x 12", 2011.
The Martina }{ Johnston Gallery is pleased to present "Unbelievablybelievable," an exhibition featuring an installation of Ali Dadgar's drawings, paintings, prints, photographs and performance and presenting "Realized Phantoms," an interactive video installation created in collaboration with Azin Seraj. Please come to an Opening Reception on Saturday, February 12th from 4 to 8 p.m. or stop by during gallery hours on Sundays, 1 - 4 p.m. Ali Dadgar's work is a riot... ...of colors, of laughs, of contradictions, and of media, but mainly in the sense of the desperate struggle for freedom embodied in public demonstrations throughout the world, including in his native Iran. Dadgar's chaotic and insistent installation surrounds the viewer with protest signs, public signage, mash-ups of text and images from Iranian and American culture, maps and patterned decorative elements, and printed self-portraits, with thick, vibrantly colored paint oozed over every surface. But a second glance reveals that the signs proclaim nonsensical, absurdist slogans, with a sense of humor that ranges from dark to puerile. Says Dadgar; "I have been experimenting with the idea of cover-up; understood in terms of deception, misinformation, censorship, protest, and also as a form of cosmetic/decorative application. I use the act of covering up—with paint—to create new images/texts from existing and found surfaces such as signs, photographs, books, wood panels. I am interested in the value system created as a result of the cover-up, surfaces and new meanings reemerging with new values." This work is an embodiment of an interest in the process of change, as exemplified by the political revolution, which cycles from hopeful idealism to tragedy and cynicism and back again. Much in the same manner as the artist's performance pieces, his work is a series of visual and conceptual contradictions, forcing the viewers to constantly reconsider their interpretation of the work. Is Dadgar celebrating the revolutionary spirit, lamenting its suppression, or cruelly mocking it? Is he laughing at himself, or laughing at us, and should we react with anger, with pity, or just with a laugh? And what kind of laugh should that be? By refusing to allow easy interpretation this work can be unsettling. But you cannot disengage yourself because of this work's seductive physical beauty. Its candy colors draw you into an ever more fascinating appreciation of subtleties of hue and texture and an exploration of how the wide variety of materials are used. Conflicting patterns overlap, compete, interfere with one another, and occasionally harmonize, an apt metaphor for Dadgar's conceptual concerns. The artist's ambiguous position is exemplified by the way he represents images of himself within his work. His printed face appears in many guises, including the unshaven face of the counterrevolutionary Basij thug. What does it mean that the artist is playing the role of his own suppressor? This line of inquiry is expanded in the interactive video piece Realized Phantoms, created in collaboration with noted Bay Area video artist Azin Seraj. In this work, which is created from iconic footage of historical events, the viewer literally becomes part of the work; a monitor opposite the main screen shows the viewers as a participant in these historical moments. But at the same time the footage is digitally dissolving into the colorful abstractions familiar from Dadgar's paintings, while the audio melodically morphs the images together and sets up a hypnotic and meditative environment. Artmaking has been described as the sublimation of messy and overwhelming emotion into an object of aesthetic beauty. But watching this process happen before our eyes, and to literally become a part of it, forces us to confront the ethically troublesome relationship between the work of the artist and the struggle for political freedom. Dadgar and Seraj note that this piece is the first in an ongoing and evolving collaboration involving this concept and footage. Bay Area based artist Ali Dadgar’s multi disciplinary practice includes experimental printmaking, digital photography, painting and performance. He completed his MFA in the Art Practice program at the University of California in Berkeley. Azin Seraj, also based in the Bay Area, works with video, photography and performance and completed her MFA in the Art Practice program at the University of California in Berkeley.
Unbelievablybelievable Ali Dadgar and Azin Seraj, Realized Phantoms, DV Still from Multimedia Installation, 2011.
Unbelievablybelievable Ali Dadgar, Cowboy, Acrylic on Velum, 40"x50", 2010.
Unbelievablybelievable Ali Dadgar, Stup, Mixed Media on Wood, 2010.
Unbelievablybelievable Ali Dadgar, Death to Picture, Acrylic on Silver Gelatin Print, 40" x 50", 2011.