Statement:

O Gallery presents “from Objects to Things”, Rouzbeh Gholami’s (b. 1995 Tehran) first solo show, curated by Hadi Sadeghian.///

“The blacksmith picks up the hammer and strikes the newly molten metal, both the blacksmith and the hammer are deeply engaged in their work. Until, in one of these blows, the hammer suddenly breaks in the blacksmith’s hands and is thrown to a side. The blacksmith and the hammer notice each other’s presence. The blacksmith with his eyes and the eyeless hammer look at each other wondering: ‘What happened to this integral part of my body? Why doesn’t it work anymore? What happened to us?'”

It was about two years ago that Rouzbeh Gholami immigrated to Austria to continue his studies, and “things”, which was the subject of his first year at the academy, was also my interest at the same time. During the past two years, we were in contact with each other many times in various ways, and over time, this series became more serious for both of us. Finally, about six months ago we decided to exhibit this collection of photographs along some installations.

The moment the hammer breaks in the blacksmith’s hands can be equated with the moment a person leaves his fatherland and his mother tongue and encounters another language and country. That is why this collection is one of the artist’s most personal works.

The collection “from Objects to Things” is about inducing mechanisms (mostly artificial) on a group of objects, so that the objects are separated from their previous nature and identity and become a “thing” in the list of possible vocabularies to use.

Being a “thing” is the situation of “the real”, the situation where we call something a “thing” because we cannot define it with a better word or a concept. And it is precisely in this situation that due to the materiality and existence of that “thing”, it leaves the state of transparency for us and becomes opaque, so to speak. Just like the example of a blacksmith who notices its presence by breaking a hammer.

– Hadi Sadeghian