Present Perfect Tense: Shirin Sabahi at KHM Gallery

KHM Gallery

Ystadvägen 22A, Malmö
31 January – 14 February 2009
Tuesday to Sunday, 13:00 – 17:00
Opening Friday 30 January, 17:00 – 21:00
Artist Talk Thursday 05 February, 15:00

In Present Perfect Tense Shirin Sabahi works with moving images, examining old and current views of image production by using an objet trouvé – 8 mm format home movies by a Swedish pre-war journalist. In the film, Present Participle, through a voiceover Sabahi reveals different narrative positions. The speaking subjects are real and fictitious, oscillating between the author of the artifacts, the author of the artworks and a third party – the archivist, who is also the journalist's son. In Present Perfect Tense images of the past – mainly of Paris and middle-class Sweden before the Second World War – are transformed into a critique of the present. The use of different narrative positions articulates the complicity of these voices and time periods. The film becomes a visual biography that challenges the original author of the footage, the Swedish tourist. At the same time it shifts our focus from the personal towards the collective, speaking of both cosmopolitan and nationalist politics and the ways in which they manifest in personal narratives.

Stills from the film are also presented, as arbitrary visual quotes. One slide show called Past Simple captures faces glancing into the camera. The other three black and white slides under the title Past Participle confront us with the protagonist of the films and thereby brings the 'present tense' to the fore. Present Perfect Tense is a playful experience with different forms of gaze and voice, which ultimately acknowledges us, the audience.

Emese Suvecz

For more information and selected high-resolution images for publicity use please contact: info@shirinsabahi.com

MARCOPOLO Exhibition by Hamed Sahihi

MARCOPOLO
Exhibition by Hamed Sahihi
30 Jan - 11 Feb
Visiting Hours: 4-8 pm
Opening Friday 30 Jan

Azad Art Gallery
No 5 Salmas sq, Golha sq, Tehran- IRAN




Khan wonders when Polo has had time to travel. It seems to him that Polo has never moved from the garden. Polo responds that everything he sees and does assumes a meaning in a place like where they sit. When he concentrates and remembers he is always in this garden in the emperor's presence, even though he continues without pausing up a river. Khan is no longer sure if he is sitting in the garden or riding through the lands that Marco is describing. Polo suggests that the garden may only exist in their minds and that their travels have not yet ended. Each time they partially close their eyes they are allowed to return to the peace of the garden. Khan wonders if this dialogue is actually taking place between two beggars with imitation names, Khan & Marcopolo.