11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

BORN 1998, KARAJ, IRAN LIVES+WORKS INTEHRAN, IRAN NOTES 1 The tree now known as Sarv-e Abarkuh (cypress of Abarkuh) is estimated to be more than four millennia old. It reaches 25 metres high, with a trunk diameter of 11.5 metres, and is awaiting UNESCO heritage status approval. With Fāsel 2022, Abolfazl Harouni invites visitors to step into the space of a Persian miniature painting. These small paintings on paper are known for their predominately flat planes featuring distinct transitions between different spaces in a composition. Harouni’s design of the red wooden screen is taken from an illustration in the Shāhnāma ( The Book of Kings ) of Shah Tahmasp (1524–76), by Abu’l Qasim Firdausi (c.940/41–1020), where a red screen separates the different pictorial spaces. In the Asia Pacific Triennial, Fāsel similarly frames different moments within Harouni’s larger display of artworks. The specific reference for Fāsel was taken from ‘Kaveh tears up the Zahhak’s Scroll’ (Folio 31v) in the Shāhnāma , representing a lavishly decorated tent in which a blacksmith refuses to endorse a document celebrating a tyrannical king. Beyond this, through a red fence, a verdant garden can be seen, as if blooming in direct response to this passage of justice. Red screens are used in multiple illustrations in the Shāhnāma to separate gardens from architecture. It becomes a motif of delineation between constructed spaces and nature, yet the screen’s permeability is a reminder that one element does not exist without the other. Fāsel serves a similar function in Harouni’s display in the Asia Pacific Triennial. In front of the red screen, the artist places a silk carpet depicting a grid of trees; behind Fāsel , he displays one abstract painting and one painting incorporating calligraphy and representation. Like the Shāhnāma miniature painters before him, Harouni places nature and human creations in dialogue. In Harouni’s Imperfect Perfection 2020, row upon row of cypress trees within a paradaida (paradise, or walled garden) are placed at the centre of a carpet. It is said that Zoroaster (the Persian pre-Islamic prophet) brought a cypress tree — often referred to as the ‘tree of life’ — from paradise and gifted it to the Kayanid king Goštāsp, who in turn planted it in honour of his conversion to Zoroastrianism. 1 Harouni breaks the strict repetition in his carpet by placing a red tree and an orange tree amid the field of green. By breaking with the purity of duplication, Harouni draws out the beauty of heterogeneity. He notes that this aberration in colour is a nod to the ancient Persian belief that aiming for perfection in the material world is a meaningless task. This has long been articulated by weavers who incorporate ‘flaws’ in their carpets that are considered moments of humble beauty. Harouni’s artwork is a visual metaphor for how diversity enables an appreciation of specificity, or how loss fosters the appreciation of life. The painting Silver Howz 2024 is comprised of a gold rectangle at the centre of a mottled black parallelogram. A howz is the pool or water basin located at the centre of Persian courtyards; in mosques, it is the place where ablutions are undertaken. The gallery light bounces off the gold leaf of the fountain at the centre of Silver Howz , while the mottled paint corresponds to the ripples in the water. In Archive 2024, two painted candles — whose bases are angled to their candlesticks — sit on either side of the phrase ویشرآ (archive) written on red velvet. Candles are symbols of enlightenment in Persia, and fire plays a central divine role in the Zoroastrian belief. In these paintings, Harouni brings together the harmonising elements of fire and water, with the conditions of purity and enlightenment through complementary art forms: representation and abstraction. More than 500 years after the first Persian miniature paintings, Harouni recreates elements of this artistic tradition, and he believes that future generations of artists will continue this approach long after he is gone. Harouni describes his archival practice as a way to bring the past into the present and projects forward that the archive will conjure the present in the future. ELLIE BUTTROSE Silver Howz 2024 / Colour pencil and gold leaf on paper / Two sheets: 47 x 111cm (irreg.) / Courtesy: The artist / Proposed for the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Collection ABOLFAZLHAROUNI ARTISTS+PROJECTS ASIAPACIFICTRIENNIAL 100 — 101