Dastan is pleased to announce the opening of Mojtaba Tajik’s solo exhibition titled “Things” at Dastan’s Basement. The exhibition will be open for public viewing from November 4, 2016 through November 13. This marks Dastan’s first collaboration with Assar Art Gallery. Mojtaba Tajik’s works have been featured in twelve solo exhibitions as well was tens of group shows.
Mojtaba Tajik (b. 1966, Tehran, Iran) started his artistic career as a photographer but soon turned to painting, training under the instruction of Aydin Aghdashloo. The subjects of Tajik’s paintings are seemingly-ordinary objects which as part of his artistic practice he collects or photographs. These objects include boxes, drawers, cabinets, suitcases, and smaller objects like those seen in this series. Through painting, he takes them out of their everyday context, transforming these ‘things’ into what can be perceived as symbols. For the painter, this process works as a form of appropriation.
Best known for his famous ‘boxes’, Mojtaba Tajik’s current series of works, “Things”, have been in progress for over five years as a side project to his major series. Nevertheless, the nearly 60 works presented in this exhibition all executed within the recent year. These “miniature drawers”, each at about 14x14 cm in surface and 7 cm in depth, carry in themselves an artifact of the artist’s everyday. When installed close together, the result bears a close resemblance to the artist’s larger paintings. The physical depth of these works give them a drawer-like feel, with the artist’s objects being ‘unboxed’.