Void

Female Artists Group Multimedia Exhibition

July 13-23, 2012
Sareban Gallery in cooperation with Raf Projects

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Statement

From writing these very words to whatever we do, or you do, we are in search of a better condition to reach pleasure. As if there is always something yonder desired; for me closing this text, for you reading it thoroughly or ending any other job. When we reach there, we shall be rewarded with joy or at least we suppose so. But as soon as we reach that point, we seek a new beginning as though the ultimate satisfaction is unreachable. It seems there is a hole in our being which cannot be filled in, a blank space, a void…

We wonder if it is the other’s fault. Joy awaits us. We fantasize; fantasy is a means for us, the subjects, to mold and structure our desires. Fantasy supports our desire, the same fantasy which Zˇizˇek describes as “an empty surface, a kind of screen for projection of desires.” (1992:8) And the desire which always craves for something is absent. Thus we are caught in a constant search for something missing, for the thing Lacan calls Objet Petit a, a kind of gap or abyss in the core of our existence which we are attempting to satisfy. But all these wishes, yearnings and demands (Objet Petit a) are not the object of desire by itself, they are rather a mask for what is missing, a lack, a blank space, a void…

These works somehow mirrored for me a gap in the artist’s soul who were looking for that Objet Petit a. The topic was women, their surrounding and their reactions towards it. The artists have talked about their personal experiences, as well as their relation with society. Sometimes they have complained, sometimes have sought after a position, sometimes have questioned a situation, sometimes have doubted and ultimately wished a desire as if there has been nothing something missing, something wrong. The significance of these works for me is both the projection of the artists’ fantasies and that missing desired object which is created by the artist instead of being sought after and finally representing the freezing of that blank space I mentioned earlier, that void…

Alireza Labeshka