Some people are like this: you never hear from them nor are there any rumors following them. They appear haughty, looking at the rest of us from on high. Every other year they use their keyboards to send an invitation to their exhibit (not too many cards nor posters). Then you go see that there is nothing highbrow about them. So much austerity was not out of arrogance, but simplicity of spirit and hard work, which didn't allow them to mingle with other artists too much.

{Siamak Sharifian} is one such person. He is a popular sculptor whose fame has always been through word of mouth, for he never advertised himself or his work, whether as painter -- which in this day and age no one takes seriously -- or as performance and installation artist, whose works were too radical for conservative professors and the department. Sharifian expends all the turbulence of his nature in his works, and his life and demeanor remains untouched. It is as such that we don't hear him much, although to date his works have appeared in 29 exhibits 11 of which were solos, and 5 of those at the SEYHOON Art Gallery.

The exhibit is entitled Between Here and Goodbye. The exhibit poster is square, in the three colors of the Iranian flag, with two frames of a plastic garbage bag texture on top and bottom, and where the insignia appeared ("Allah" today, "Lion and the Sun" before), the silhouette of a man whose military footprints can be seen. The window of Seyhoon Gallery looks like an abandoned warehouse, with a bright red frame and a tied garbage bag sitting on a stone column. Inside, there are 10 paintings in dark colors. Well, not exactly paintings, but embossed black on black patterns, in three sizes, made of black plastic cartons and pressed garbage bags. A red light is illuminating these works slightly.

Siamak Sharifian is depicting weary, burnt, and weak beings in their houses or out on claustrophobic streets. These works, which bear such names as "The Great Master," "I Like Rahim More Than {Alberto Giacometti}", "Still Life," "If Sorrow Wasn't," "It Has Been Years Since He Died," "Just Yesterday," are narratives, they tell us the story of a city turned into garbage, and a people who have become one with their surroundings. "A Story For the Lover" shows a man and a woman made of garbage bags sitting across from each other, patient and waiting. In "Collective Regret," a woman is shown standing erect in black veil. In another work, which bears the title of the exhibit, we see a tied garbage bag whose content is a fetus. Sharfiian is showing us the city through the eyes of a blind person who has chosen blindness Oedipus-like: "Why see when everything is unattractive." [1] One can detect the outlines of a person through blood-soaked vision. It is as such that we have no colors; that the actual white blindness of Braille has been replaced here with the oily, shriveled black of plastic.

The price of these works is unbelievable. Figures range from 7000,000 Rls (700 Euros) to ten million, for works whose material is neither lasting nor expensive. This is while, in his previous exhibit, Sharifian priced his works of wood, metal, and oil paintings so reasonably that not only collectors but regular viewers would also reach for their checkbooks. Thus, there must be something behind the sudden hike in prices here -- the artist is not after selling his works. For him the price of our blindness is all but too expensive. The blood money of our self-inflicted blindness soars in a reputable gallery like Seyhoon, and Sharifian is going along with contemporary poet {Ahmad Shamloo} whose main fear is to "die in a land where the wage of a gravedigger exceeds that of human freedom." [2] Gravedigger or garbage collector, it doesn't matter much, Sharifian reminds us.

The last work in this series, "Hidden Self-Realization," is the only one where we see traces of painting. It shows a white being emerging from the pile of waste, at whose feet we can detect the bones and skull of another. This work, although the weakest of the collection in terms of execution, is perhaps an attempt to lessen the pessimism of the rest and promises a kind of salvation.

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[1] Oedipus' famous dictum in Sophocles' Oedipus the King.
[2] "I have never feared death, though its hands were more fragile than degeneracy. / My fear, surely, is to die in a land where the wage of a gravedigger exceeds that of human freedom." Ahmad Shamloo, Ayda dar ayeneh.