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Tala Madani

Gather round and Tala Madani will paint you a tale. The Iranian-born artist, though she has spent most of her life away from her homeland, carries on a Persian penchant for storytelling. Narratives contained within each of her canvases are solemn, dark and humorous in equal measure. Madani explores the socio-religious based rituals of an imaginary world of Muslim men caught inside comic book panels of their own making. Having recently added painterly animations to her repertoire--violently hilarious films that prance and hiccup before our eyes--the artist continues her explorations of what it means to paint and be painted. Madani's unique status as an outside insider along with her theatrical instincts and painterly chops make her one of the most engaging artists of her generation. I spoke with the painter from her Amsterdam studio just after her second sold-out show, "ASS•AS•SIN: hashish anyone?" at Lombard-Freid Projects in New York.

'Nose Job', 2008

Doug McClemont: The nosejob painting caught my eye first at your recent show. I know Deborah Kass was one of your instructors at Yale. Was this a reference to her Jewishy send-up of Andy Warhol's painting?

Tala Madani: Deb is amazing. I was thinking more about the Warhol, which I'd seen again recently. So I quoted it in the top two squares and then continued with the face getting a mustache and changing. Deb's is very different.

DM: That particular Warhol seems a perfect fit with your work because it relates to transformation. In whatever small way, in every one of your canvases the characters are different when the story ends then where they were at the beginning.

TM: There is definitely a metamorphosis, some sort or a violent act in every painting. They go through a change or it takes place onto them. A nose is very much about identity. Or poking fun of it. Playing with it. So the nose became an easy target. And you can't escape Warhol.

DM: What about the man/woman thing which I think is crucial in your work. Men being somehow emasculated and the complete absence of women.... do you ever paint women???

TM: I used to and I might again. But I haven't for a long time.

'Apple Job', 2008

DM: A big nose is traditionally masculine­­--the trannies I know, the very first thing they do during a sex change is get their nose whittled down to look more feminine . Gender played a bigger role in your most recent show. I'm thinking of the painting entitled "Apple Job." The one with the apple's in the guy's bra? Is there more gender stuff going on?

TM: Yes, I mean the guys in the paintings are sort of feminine anyway...but I felt they needed to mimic that way of behaving. They are emulating women a bit. It happened .....with the nose job....not necessarily to do with a sex change, but it is emasculating, a nose job.

DM: You said that your characters are feminine...why are they feminine?

TM: I guess I meant in their charm. The way they use their bodies. In their postures. There's a charm they have that is not a handsome charm.

DM: Because they're trying to entice us in a way?

TM: Yeah. To entice me and then entice everybody.

DM: Is storytelling a traditional part of Iranian culture?

TM: Definitely. I think Iranian culture is very much a literary culture. A narrative culture. It's not an image culture. Storytelling is a very strong part. Traditionally, whenever a person painted it was to always illustrate literature: poetry or historic narrative or religious narratives. The history of painting is always the history of imaging stories.

DM: Who are some of the writers you like?

TM: Hmmm. Latin writers... like Borges. I love the magic realism. Everything painted within the books is very highly evocative.

DM: Being originally from Iran, what is your visceral response to people like Hillary and McCain our hawkish politicians who say whatever sounds tough enough to get elected in the U.S, and that we should attack Iran?

TM: It's really amazing; it really shakes my back. Immediately my head responds with: what would I do in case something violent did happen? Because I've been in the U.S. for so long it would be really hard to break away. But in a way, with that kind of posturing, I don't know if I could live with myself if I even stayed in America. But then I wonder: what would help? Would I go to Washington and shave my head on the steps of the White House?

DM: One does feel impotent.

TM: You really do because what are we talking about with another war? They're saying: let's pull out of Iraq and then we will bomb the hell out ...what did she say? Obliterate! The whole thing is absolutely fantasist...there's a fantasy that Iran wants to nuke any country. And then to fanaticize about obliterating a country is absolutely horrible.

DM: This country gets more sickening on a daily basis. The politicians play on tired old fears. We've had 300 years of old white guys... isn't it time we tried somebody else once ? Maybe a person like that could bridge the tremendous gap that exists.

TM: I honestly think that America does set the tone for the World and it could be amazing if Barack came to the White House. It would affect Europe and the World. After Bush came you saw Europe going all conservative... Germany France, Italy. It could set a better tone for sure.

DM: OK. The classroom features prominently now in the new show. It seems like men receiving instructions. What are the instructions? On becoming a man? To become a member of some secret group?

'Hangman Lesson', 2008

TM: The classroom for me worked on several levels. I wanted to create a screen of some kind within the space of the figures. The blackboard could function as a screen which sort of mimics an animation screen, because in our heads it's a changing surface. Things are animated on a blackboard because they keep changing. Then I also like that there's a middle-aged kind of feedback when they're in this young, juvenile space. And then on the blackboard itself the work could might depict everything I knew they could really have in their space...like a horse. The other thing was the child's game "Hangman." I've always been interest in language. Just like women are eliminated from my work, I negate the idea of using language. Because language is very specific and neither English nor Farsi fits what is being conveyed. Either of them would be too loaded somehow. I always loved the game "Hangman". I thought it would be good to show the futility. The game is empty there are no letters. The men in the paintings literally played the hanged man rather than the funny game "Hangman."

That all seemed to work within the context of blackboards. It fit within the context of the classroom, with its blackboard and a space to act something out.

DM: The blackboard because its record is temporary, right? There are only traces of what went on in this room and they can erase whatever took place... back to the idea of secret ritual.

TM: Exactly. And there's a truth in the residue... the residue is very telling.

DM: That's wonderful. Also, there's the endless possibility of the blackboard: if they want a horse they can draw one.

TM: Right. Within the logic of the painting in that space they have to find a way of making all their fantasies come true. So the blackboard evolved from that too.

DM: In your small works, obviously there's a difference in the way they're painted and the gestures and brushstrokes, but it seems to me that the smaller works are more contest-oriented. And the large works are men working together in either a ritual or in supplication to a higher something.

TM: Definitely.

DM: Is this a conscious distinction? I mean a human pyramid is obviously men working together in small works it's usually one man--one masochist--and somebody more powerful than he is.

TM: Yes, in the small works they're able to work things out. Those paintings are more secular. In that secular space there is antagonism and a bit of friction between them Even if they're all smiling and laughing, there's something jarring that they can work out. In the larger paintings there is definitely much more conformity among the figures. They're all in this ride and they're barely fighting it anymore. The big ones are sort of without space... like a moment.

DM: I like the loaded symbols... the appearances of the birthday cake are always compelling.

TM: I sort of ran with it. After a while you have to keep challenging yourself for images.

DM: Do you stand further away from the canvas when you paint the large ones?

TM: Physically, no. There's a different energy that I try to keep while painting them. I do hold myself back in a figurative way, but not physically. The larger ones I am inside them. With the small ones I restrain myself. I want them to be a bit starved, a bit hungry for action or for color or for whatever I might do for them.

DM: Are the flies and the "Hangman" new themes?

TM: They are. I'm always searching for ways for the figures to commit suicide. Ali Shariati is a major Islamic scholar. He was educated in France was a very much influenced by Foucault. He is known for philosophizing about Islam and the right to die. You are most independent when you choose your own death. It very much fed into the Iran/Iraq war... these kind of ideas. They were a lot to read poetically. I read it and I'm affected by the poetry of the writing . The beauty of Shariati's texts. With the cake it was always the blowing out and blowing up the cake as well... and the hangman... even the bubble gum was another way of bursting. The flies are new. I'm the midst of doing an animation with the flies biting this man's head and he sort of scratches it and scratches it and it gets really big and finally explores.

DM: The balloons too - anything that might explode.

TM: Exactly. All of the little props that go bang.

DM: Everyone talks about your works being violent, but it's a consenting violence. This kind of violence avoids intimidation and knocks at the door of the sexual.

TM: Oh, yes, definitely I said this before but one man's violence is another man's lost weekend or something. You know, fantasy. When people say those things I think it is much more there own sort of personal standards talking rather than what they get from the image.

DM: That's so true. Even though you like your characters, you are goofing on them a bit, no? They take themselves so seriously in these absurd situations. There is kind of a distance because we feel superior to these fools. Is this a valid response?

TM: I don't see myself as superior to the images. You could say they're my id, even my alter ego. It's complicated: in some images there is more distance for me, but I don't try to posture myself in contrast to them.

'Dirty Starts', 2008

DM: I guess that's a bad way of putting it. I never quite feel sorry for them because it's all self-imposed, this world they're in. The choices they've made. The aspect of absurdity comes from the fact that they're taking it all so seriously. Grown men blowing a bubble and solemnly waiting for it to be popped by another man. They're suicide bombers and butt fuckers.

TM: Well, they do take themselves seriously but because of the way they're painted there is something ridiculous and vulnerable about them. Even though they might not know it. I can't love them because of that. That's too much. Yeah, they change. But from one painting to the other they change. That level of vulnerability. Even to the point of how seriously they take themselves. What you're saying is generally correct but I allow those things to change.

DM: What about the hashish, Tala? Are the characters high this time around?

TM: (Laughs) Nooooo... I wanted to make this sexualizing of the works more overt this time. So the word "assassin", broken down as ass-as-sin, and of course, the root of word is Persian is comes from ...aschisinin or hashish. There was a group, a former dynasty, of Iranians who for nationalistic reasons wanted to separate themselves from the Arabs. They were very nationalistic . They were considered war heroes and each man was castrated and they celebrated with hashish after each, well, slaughter. I thought it would be interesting to reminisce about this group of castrated nationalistic Persian warriors. "Hashish anyone?" With already a bit of a high way of saying it.

DM: It sounds beautiful when you say it.

TM: It was also a bit of turning inside out and making fun of itself from inside. I think it works best to sort of imbed the joke within the thing itself. So the title of the show came after the paintings. But the elements that are in the paintings are brought together I think.

DM: To view the animations...why was the viewer required to sort of crouch? To put us in that supplicating stance in a way?

TM: Yes, they are a little bit short. It depends on the person's height. I want them to be low enough so that I don't eliminate anyone from being able to see it. Also, to peer up into one space inside this small black hole. Of course, to get the audience to behave like the figures in the painting, sort of crouching.

DM: Is religion silly?

TM: No, I don't think anyone's beliefs are, no. The paintings refer to behavior, not to religion specifically.

DM: I understand of course that it's not any particularly religion. Or it is one, it's their own bowdlerized or misinterpreted creation.

TM: I'm interested in the behavior of the masses. Creating icons, figures and then having later on to destroy. The creation of icons which then inevitably are destroyed because the icon becomes corrupt or something. To me, that's very religious behavior, needing to put something up on a pedestal. And the mass behavioral tendency later on of being almost inevitably oppressed by it somehow, having to bring it down. In a way the painting is poking fun at religious behavior and also poking fun at mass behavior. The masses can behave ridiculously in many circumstances. That is interesting to me . When you look at the local things, in the small microcosm, everything makes sense and everyone can behave in certain ways and can therefore be accountable. Whenever you're faced with an institution the behavior has quite a different character - not necessarily perverted, but more like an anomaly.