Poems and Pictures in the struggle for respect and recognition Five Paintings of Frida Narin

Bright figures, rich in contrast, shine out of small, thin glass frames at the IvI exhibition room: five selected portraits that artist Frida Narin brought from her Parisian collection as her contribution to the current art exhibition. Forced to flee Iran in 2007 because of her dissident attitudes and artistic activities, she has been living and working in France since 2009. In numerous erotic portrayals and poems, she has been fighting for the physical self-determination of women in Iran, criticizing their oppression by the patriarchal structures prevalent in the radical Islamic theocracy of Iran. On the occasion of one art exhibition in Iran, Frida recounts in a 2012 interview,1 she was required to cover the women’s faces with scarfs. Generally though, she does not like to talk about her paintings: only if she has to, as she pointedly says, and I do not want to harass her. Meanwhile, I would like to present some reflections on her contribution in what follows. As Frida could not take those she had done in Iran with her, she created new paintings in France. This is one, but by no means the major reason why her paintwork happened to be briskly extracted from its social context and its context of origin when it became part of the IvI exhibition. Curating these paintings, it was doubtlessly necessary to supplement them with an explanatory text, displayed next to the works themselves, in order to elucidate the original social context that gave rise to them. With the aid of such factual information, the viewers may reach some understanding of women’s situation in Iran on a rational level. But what kind of meaning may Frida Narins paintings adopt for viewers who were never exposed to that situation in the first place, and can thus only grasp it intellectually in this indirect, mediated way?

Frida Narin highlights the facial expressions of her sitters. Given as a collocation of coloured planes, they are usually set in the centre of the frame, announcing their prescience through their expression and colourful appearance. Equally, they nevertheless keep the viewer at a distance. Not being detailed in any plastic way – the bodies figure as plains and thus do not appear as “realistic”– the bodies as such are never entirely tangible. Accordingly, the woman protagonists present their erotic bodies, without availing themselves as “erotic objects” to the audience. In the reality of the art exhibition, Frida Narin’s pictures therefore obtain a new meaning. Distanced from their original context, they encounter an audience that never found itself facing the lived realities of women in Iran However, it remains doubtful whether it may ever be possible to thoroughly understand these realities just by contemplating the paintings. The mere fact that these pictures invite an immediate, sensual approach to this territory – secondarily, as a kind of rational explication – is not in itself sufficient to turn them into a universal language which could foster a kind of global understanding by way of “cultural diplomacy”, and explain the issues of Iran’s women to everyone. Pending further argument, through their presence in a different reality, they nonetheless clearly have the power to convey insights that may unfold emancipatory potential, far beyond their native context of origin. Frida keeps silent with regard to her pictures and her woman sitters likewise do not immediately communicate a message. Her work is about an immediate insight that may reach out to everyone individually by and through pictures themselves. Not having to hide yourself, being vividly present. If one wished to lend words to Frida and her painted women, one would come to contend on their behalves: “We don’t need to say anything, nor carry any massage, but neither hide ourselves and our hardships. We are vividly pressent – that is stance enough in our struggle for recognition.” Frida Narin was born in 1983 in Marivan, the kurdish part of Iran. 2007 she had to flee Iran because of her opposition. She worked as a jounalist in Irak for 2 years. 2009 she emigrated to France, where she lives right now. Her first book, „The grey scilence“ was published in 2004 in persian language. Paintings, graphical works fotos, and poems by Frida Narian are to be found at: https://fridanarin.wix.com/narin

Translated by Paul-Christoph Trüper Written

by Lena Sophie Trüper