“Built in the Midst ”
Hamed Dehqan
Curated by Yasaman Tamizkar and Valentina Bianchi
‘built in the midst’ explores similarities, repetition, and differences in a
magical constellation of references. The elements of the installation
function as sculptures, feelings, or contexts, according to the phys-
ical position of the observer. The visitor is therefore guided into the
chapel in a constantly renovated discovery of various levels of visibility,
seeing distinct compositions in relation to where they are standing.
This exhibition presents the transition from Hamed Dehqan’s
former practice based in Iran to the development of his projects as
an artist in residence at HISK. His previous site-specific installations
took shape within these spaces with found objects that unfolded the
collective life experience among plants and their behaviour as a form
of (comparative study in) discovering the social human life. Plants and
objects in those installations were used in a figurative manner and
were the main subject of his study.
For this project he keeps exploring relative materials, colours,
textures and shapes through objects in his installations. In his previous
works he was an observer of his surroundings with a contemporary
language defying to accept the classical form of painting and sculpture.
“If moving forward meant creating a bigger scale installation, I take
a step back, to transform a three dimensional image into two dimen-
sional colour, form, and texture.”
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door;
So I turn’d to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars, my joys & desires.
The Garden of Love
William Blake
Every time I think about a new project, it fluidly takes me back
to my previous experience in my practice. Several questions
arise: How does experimentation assure repetition? When
and how does it occur? And could it be understood in the
same way as difference?
“Nature produces similarities; one need only think of mimicry.”
Walter Benjamin, On The Mimetic Faculty
Nevertheless, repetition and similarity are inherently different.
Similarity is visible and perceptual, whereas repetition is tan-
gible. The content in every repetition is different; the content
in similarity stays the same. Similarity is based on the idea
that one content can be replaced by another content, and
according to this, one part represents the whole and vice
versa. However, repetition can become valid merely to what
it replaces. In other words, every repetition encompasses
difference while nothing is inherently different. A ceremony
also acts in the same way. It is nothing but a repetition that
each time occurs in a different way; In the same manner as this
exhibition: ‘built in the midst’ holds a concealed dialogue in an
intrinsic manner, an internal repetition of the works created
with regards to the past.
“The repetition of a work of art is like a singularity without concept,
and it is not by chance that a poem must be learned by heart.”
Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition
In collaboration with HISK, KASK, ExtraCity