Affirm The Break

Statement:

Affirm the Break. What Break? The break from those powers that be, from the very concept of power, and from wherever power is seized.

Maurice Blanchot.

What should one break from? This might be a fundamental question. The works in this exhibition are an effort, albeit small, to invite a departure from familiar practices or to defy what wants to discipline and homogenize everything.

Here, Break occurs from two things: first, the display of what is thinkable but not visible to a large part of society, and second, the break from what interprets art in the market or in politics.

In this exhibition, some of the images might be deemed surplus or marginal, but being off-center, being a project, referencing the archive, and contem- poraneity are elements that can be found in each of them; works that have emerged from different issues but are brought together by their shared characteristics.

Let us not forget that centrality should not be reduced to geography, such as saying Tehran as the capital and its surroundings... The center is the same focus of power, wealth, networks of relations, etc., all of which diminish or make other spaces invisible.

We should not flee from such an emer- gency that we all live through; we must break from it and build a new path, upon the ruins and lost spaces.

Mahmoud Maktabi