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TALA MADANI
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Armed with equal amounts of humour and pathos,


Rajesh Punj unravels painter Tala Madani’s preoccupation
with a universal culture of vanilla ice-cream and violence.

T here is a wonderful charm and intoxicating aura about


Tala Madani’s canvases as they read like incidents from
a sophisticated comic strip. The paint rests on the surface like indulgent scoops of ice-cream
smeared onto the counter of a well-established delicatessen. Though for all their visual warmth,
Madani’s works allude to a violence and authoritarianism that is as much domestic as it is uni-
versal. The painter’s characters are childlike, playful even, in their compositional expressions, as
they appear not only to wrestle with one another but with their fate as figures in paint. Giv-
en to explaining her work, Madani begins by declaring herself “a painter and not an artist”. For
her, she says, “the artist has an ego over the material while a painter is much more subservi-
ent to their materials.” She goes on to further explain her paintings “as me acting upon the
canvas”. She defines that “the four corners of a canvas create an abstract space where I can
commit my actions.”
For Madani, her paintings are eclipsed only by her animations, which we touch upon when
discussing the direction of her work. Incisive in her short films, Madani declares there is a “greater
effectiveness” in what you can do – “Animation is more sharable, portable even.” Immediately there
is a sense that painting and animation have a hierarchical position as the tools of her trade and
Madani admitted “to painting being more difficult, while my animations have reached a greater Opening spread: Red Stripes with Stain.
2008. Oil on canvas. 195 x 210 cm.  
number of people”. She adds that “it is so much to do with our education systems and develop-
Above: (Detail) Cells II. 2010. Spray paint
ments of visual cultures globally, that animations and moving images are more accessible.” and oil on canvas. 203.2 x 203.2 cm.

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“It wasn’t a conscious choice of men over
women, it was a process of elimination.”

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FEMME FATALE private pleasure? Are we privy to such detail or Facing page: Holy Light. 2006.
Marker and oil on canvas.
Madani was born in Tehran in 1981 and now are our tentative urges for the identity of these 121.9 x 121.9 cm.
lives between Amsterdam and New York. Read- half-naked men indulging themselves futile?
ing political science and visual art at Oregon This uncertainty is something of the strength of Below: (Detail) Tower
Reflection. 2006. Oil on canvas.
State, she was awarded the University Presi- Madani’s paintings, as they manage with incred- 182.9 x 396.2 cm.
dent’s Award for Excellence in Art. Graduating ible gusto to challenge our understanding of the
from Yale University with a Master’s in Painting Middle East and of power-structures in general.
in 2006, she received the Visual Arts Fellowship The artist wishes, between Europe and the USA,
from The Fine Arts Work Centre, Provincetown in to critique the stature of all men by stripping
2006 and the Kees Verwey Fellowship in 2007. them of their masculine apparatus and replac-
She has shown in a number of group exhibi- ing it with the foolish tools of idiots.
tions, including Saatchi’s Unveiled: New Art from If violence appears at the core of all of Madani’s
the Middle East, and will be participating in the works, then it is imperative to ask why. Provoca-
Venice Biennale’s Dutch Pavilion this year. tively for her, violence as it exists in her work is not
As a resident of both Europe and the USA, necessarily the abhorrent act – It is the regular-
Madani is influenced by pretty much everything ity of it among men, the reasonableness and the
there is and specifically references cartoon- celebratory air about it that appeals to her. Quite
ist Robert Crumb, the ‘Chicago Imagists’ who possibly, the manner in which violence has effec-
hailed from the 1960s and 70s and the work of tively infiltrated our imagination, as it becomes a
American painter Alice Neel. Theatre, film, illus- domestic action as well as an international crime.
tration and Japanese prints are the buzz words Madani suggests that within her paintings, these
for Madani as it becomes less and less possible figures are allowed the freedom to celebrate vio-
to define her practice to a particular moment or lence as it exists at that moment.
movement. Recalling her early works, the un-
nerving grouping of men in canvases like In Line
(2006) suggests something of the shackling of
prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
Holy Light (2006) is another impulsive work
that appears to have been violated by slick
threads of paint that have discoloured the ma-
jority of the canvas. This might represent light as
it pours unceremoniously over another group
of beleaguered men whose hands are clasped
behind their backs. Is this depicted moment a
precursor to divine ecstasy or the pre-emptive
massacre of men? Might these be the secret po-
lice of the Libyan dictate, Egypt’s rallied generals
acting out their desires behind closed doors or
are they Syria’s secret intelligentsia, indulging in

Madani [alludes to] a moment that constitutes


many moments of violence the world over.
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The mix-up of cake and conflict is
the abrasive energy that illuminates
Tala Madani’s work time and again.
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Facing page: Spraying Stripes.
2008. Oil on linen. 60.5 x 70 cm.

Above: (Detail) Table Trouble.


2008. Oil on wood. 24.5 x 30 cm.

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Below: Elastic Pink. 2008. Oil on A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE


canvas. 250 x 195 cm.
When referencing her early works, In Line and
Facing page: BHaus. 2009. Oil
on canvas. 40 x 40 cm. Holy Light from 2006, Madani defines her inter-
est in “the masses”, of how “these linear motifs
of men, moved between abstraction, detail and
then effectively returned to abstraction”. And
apart from the fact that they appear cast under
the same spell, Madani defines her early deci-
sion to paint men – “it wasn’t a conscious choice
of men over women, it was a process of elimi-
nation because I didn’t want to cartoonise the
female figure with exaggerated breasts etc.”
More troubling are works like Tower Reflec-
tion 2006, a four-metre long canvas of repeated
gestural strokes that are depicted as figures on
all fours, as Madani suggests the labour of men
is subservient to a clandestine system of civil
obedience. The hypnotic charm of this work is
in its use of washed-out red arches, crudely
repeated over the canvas against Madani’s un-
canny use of perspective, as each of her figures
are disseminated by crass grid patterns. With a
slight of hand, these abstractions fast become
configurations of forms as the arches, decorated
as figures, rest on all fours, appearing poised
by their duty to one another; each tier of men
closer to death or freedom. The rationale for
such a configuration of men is what is so puz-
zling about this work, because it can only sug-
gest one of two things: detainees’ subjection to
routine acts of violence or the endless history of
violence as it is subjected upon a community of
men; The Groundhog Day effect, as Madani re-
fers to it. In such canvases, she appears to have
rationalised the irrational, given form to the
circumstances of man’s inhumanity to man.

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When pressed, Madani appears to have
moments of unsolicited frustration.
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Where the crudeness of these initial scenes ures and in Pink Cake (2008), two semi-naked Facing page: Braided Beard. 2007.
Oil on canvas. 35.6 x 27.9 cm.
hold your attention in 2006, in works from 2007 men front up to one another in a cacophony of
All images courtesy the artist and
and more especially 2008, Madani’s paintings ap- cake and candlesticks, and appear to be indulg- Lombard Freid Projects, New York.
pear more sophisticated for their palette and at ing in an act of machismo and sexual perversity.
the same time, she appears to apply greater detail The confrontation is charged by a mix of mutual
to her forms. This is a clear distinction between lust and masochistic violence. In Clown Victim
Madani’s earlier works, “which are larger canvases (2008), Madani employs the recurring motif of
with a greater mass of people and the smaller the clown face as a disguise for the actions of
works with more detail and fewer figures”. Those violent men. Clown Victim is a disturbing work,
figures take on unmistakable characteristics painted with measured gusto, depicting two
and interiors appear more resolved without be- men, side by side, a scene that could equally be
coming finished. Madani still manages to allude read as sexually charged or an act of violence. In
effectively to the animation of a moment that Spraying Stripes (2008), Madani’s figures appear
constitutes many moments of violence the world to be classified in a similar vein as the incumbent
over, by being more considered in her forms yet recipients of craven acts of capital punishment;
retaining the looseness of her brushstrokes. whether that be at Guantanamo Bay or an insur-
Nosefall 2007 is a work that reflects Madani’s gent’s compound in the Afghan mountains. The
preoccupation with these ineffective armies of spray-can could well be replaced by a hand gun
men. This placid painting depicts a platoon of and the paint by blood, as they appear ready for
men dressed in pink leotards preparing for para- execution in this laborious setting of dictate and
chute dives. With seemingly little effort, Madani domestics, all fixed to a pink rug. BHaus (2009) is
brilliantly subverts their macho apparatus as a distinctive work that is a graphic reflection of
phallic symbols that they have attached to their Madani’s preoccupation with power structures.
less masculine selves. In this utterly perverse work These multi-coloured men appear quietly com-
of beauty we are privy to the closed circles of mitted to their symbolic circus trick.
men demonstrating their prowess for perfunc- When pressed, Madani appears to have mo-
tory ends. Resembling animated guerrillas admir- ments of unsolicited frustration which call her
ing one another, these replicated figures in oil ap- to demand a degree of activism on our part, so
pear plagued by nosebleeds – an affliction that that reality can be questioned. Touching upon
renders this troop more titillating than tyrannical. her relationship to Iran and what is possible as
This work takes Madani back to a recent working an Iranian artist now, Madani has a healthy scep-
visit to Iran and a moment when she revealed ticism for all cultural constructs, whether they
two works with phallic undertones (to a lecture stem from the Middle East or the Americas. Has
theatre of attending undergraduates at Tehran she burdened herself when she describes “the
University) and surprisingly for Madani, instead impossibility of it all”? Reassuring such fatalism is
of brushing the moment aside, “the students temporarily replaced by her enthusiasm for her
laughed quite violently, especially the more con- new lexicography of British-built ‘dazzle ships’
servative ones,” she recalls. that were used during the Second World War
to confuse the visual rangefinders of the enemy
on the water. A telling new metaphor of what
IN LOVE AND WAR is to come.
The mix-up of cake and conflict is the abrasive
energy that illuminates Madani’s work time and
again. Elastic Pink (2008) is a delicious work of For more information visit
contorted chocolate and vanilla-coloured fig- www.lombard-freid.com

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