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Thursday 6 February

Koorosh Shishegaran: Revolution Through the Line

Listen to me carefully, you bunch of snobs. Today I will tell you about an artist who turned the Iranian artistic establishment of the 1970s upside down, Koorosh Shishegaran, born in 1944 in Qazvin. A creator who made the line a manifesto and the street a work of art, long before your conditioned little brains started to get excited about street art and other trendy urban interventions.

Let me tell you a story that will shake your certainties about contemporary art. In 1977, while you were probably lounging in your minimalist galleries contemplating overpriced canvases, Shishegaran was posting posters along Shahreza Avenue in Tehran proclaiming that the street itself was his artwork. No need for a white cube, no need for an opening with canapés and champagne. Life, real life, as raw material for art. This action, titled “Art+Art”, wasn’t just a simple provocation from an artist seeking recognition. It was a masterful slap in the face of institutional art, an act that resonates with philosopher Walter Benjamin’s thoughts on the loss of aura in artwork in the age of mechanical reproduction. Benjamin would have applauded with both hands seeing how Shishegaran pulverized the distinction between art and daily life, transforming each passerby into an involuntary spectator and each urban gesture into an artistic performance.

But wait, this is just the tip of the iceberg. From his first exhibition in 1973 at the Mess Gallery in Tehran, Shishegaran had already begun shaking established conventions. Instead of playing the art market game, he had chosen to give his works away to the public for free. You heard right: GIVE. Not sell, not exchange, not lend. Give. An approach that directly references Jacques Rancière’s theories on the “distribution of the sensible”, this political distribution of what is visible, sayable, and doable in a given society. Shishegaran wasn’t just redistributing art, he was redefining the very rules of its production and distribution.

Between 1973 and 1974, he developed what he calls his “Mass Production Works”, a series of works that anticipated by several decades the questions about reproducibility and accessibility of art that obsess our contemporaries so much. He used car paint on wooden panels, creating compositions where everyday objects mix with abstract motifs. It’s a masterful thumbing of the nose at the supposed uniqueness of artwork, a celebration of multiplicity that prefigures Nicolas Bourriaud’s theories of post-production.

Then comes his “Appropriation of Works of Great Artists” period (1974-1976), where he tackles the great masters with an audacity that would make Sherrie Levine pale. It’s not simply about copying or citing, but about digesting and transforming, creating a new visual syntax that transcends cultural boundaries. He takes elements from known works and combines them with his own concepts, creating cultural hybrids that defy any simplistic categorization.

In 1976, he launches his “Postal Art” project, sending artistic postcards around the world. This isn’t just mail art à la Ray Johnson, it’s a true artistic guerrilla strategy that uses the postal system as a medium. Notably, he creates a poster about the fragile peace process in Lebanon, which he distributes as postcards sent to political, social, cultural, and media centers worldwide. Art as a vector of political consciousness, but without ever falling into the trap of easy propaganda.

The 1980s mark a turning point in his practice, but don’t be fooled: this isn’t a renouncement of his radical principles, it’s their sublimation. He develops what would become his visual signature: these undulating lines, these infinite spirals that seem to dance on the canvas like acid-tripping whirling dervishes. These abstract compositions aren’t simple formal exercises to impress the gallery. No, these entanglements of lines are mental cartographies, emotional seismographs recording the turbulences of our time.

Look carefully at one of his monumental works like this “Untitled” canvas from 1991, measuring 184 x 298.5 centimeters. The lines interweave, overlap, create vertiginous depths that draw us into a chromatic maelstrom. It’s Jackson Pollock who would have studied Persian calligraphy, but more radical, more visceral. Each line is like a sentence in an endless visual poem, a celebration of infinity that references both Sufi tradition and chaos mathematics.

What makes Shishegaran so unique is that he transforms the line into a true philosophical language. His works are visual meditations on the Deleuzian concept of the rhizome, this non-hierarchical structure that develops unpredictably, creating multiple and horizontal connections. Each painting is a complex network of lines that intersect without beginning or end, defying any attempt at linear reading. It’s a masterful kick in the anthill of traditional Iranian art, while remaining deeply anchored in its visual culture.

Take his series of self-portraits from 2007, exhibited at the Khak Gallery. Instead of settling for a simple narcissistic representation, he creates thirty digital variations of the same work, playing with colors and forms to explore multiple facets of identity. It’s a true thumbing of the nose at the uniqueness of artwork, a celebration of multiplicity that echoes Gilles Deleuze’s theories on difference and repetition. Each variation is both the same and different, creating a conceptual vertigo that questions our certainties about originality in art.

During the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), while many artists took refuge in safe decorative art, Shishegaran created a series of drawings that capture the dark spirit of the time. These works, exhibited at the Golestan Gallery in 1990, aren’t literal illustrations of the conflict, but deep emotional testimonies that transcend simple political commentary. It’s in abstraction that he finds the most appropriate language to speak of the unspeakable.

The right-thinking critics will probably object that his work of recent decades has become too tame, too “sellable”. But that’s precisely where his genius lies. By mastering the system he initially criticized, Shishegaran succeeded in infiltrating the art market while maintaining the integrity of his vision. His recent works, like those exhibited at the Opera Gallery in London in 2013, aren’t compromises but natural evolutions of his reflection on art as a vector of social change.

His influence on contemporary Iranian art is comparable to that of Joseph Beuys on European art, with this crucial difference that Shishegaran had to navigate in a political and social context that was far more complex. Like Beuys who proclaimed that every man is an artist, Shishegaran demonstrated that every street could be a work of art, that every line could be a manifesto. He transformed the artistic act into a political act without ever falling into the trap of propaganda or simplistic messaging.

In 2014, he creates “Figure”, a canvas of 160 x 200 centimeters that represents the apex of his technical and conceptual mastery. The work is a whirlwind of blue, red, and orange lines on a gray background, punctuated by white strokes that create a sensation of perpetual movement. It’s a dazzling demonstration of his ability to create complex psychological spaces from simple lines. Each curve is meticulously thought out, each intersection calculated to create maximum impact. It’s action painting that would have been filtered through non-Euclidean geometry.

Through his “PhotoWorks” of 1995-1996, he explores the fusion between photography and painting, superimposing his characteristic lines on landscapes and natural textures. This isn’t a simple exercise in style, but a deep reflection on the nature of representation and the relationship between different artistic mediums. These hybrid works anticipate the questioning about post-medium that occupies so much of current contemporary art.

His recent exhibitions, like the one at Bermondsey Project Space in 2020, show an artist who continues to push the boundaries of his art. The lines are still there, but they’ve become more complex, more charged with meaning. Each canvas is like a musical score for an orchestra of emotions, where colors and forms create visual symphonies that defy any simple description.

So the next time you get excited about a participatory installation at some biennial, remember that Shishegaran was already making socially engaged art when most contemporary artists in vogue today were still in diapers. And when you contemplate his canvases with dancing lines in an air-conditioned gallery, don’t forget that these abstract arabesques are the direct heirs of his radical actions from the 1970s. They carry within them the same will to transform art into collective experience, to make each spectator an active participant in the creation of meaning.

There you have it, dear little snobs, you’ve just received an art history lesson that far exceeds your little preconceived categories. Koorosh Shishegaran isn’t just an artist, he’s a revolutionary who understood that true art isn’t limited to museum walls. It’s time for you to open your eyes and minds to this reality. And if you don’t agree, well, that means you haven’t understood anything about contemporary art.

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