Janet Rady writes: Running concurrently at Tate Britain with ‘Lure of the East’, is the photographic exhibition of the works of Mitra Tabrizian, the Iranian artist and film director, or as she prefers to be known, ‘cultural practitioner with a special interest in or concern for, Iran’.   (See Kazbah listing here)

Scarcely known in the United Kingdom, Tabrizian has lived and worked in London since 1977 when she left Iran. The exhibition, comprising eighteen large scale photographs, focuses on a small selection of her works from 2000 to 2007 which, with the exception of one piece, are all from her own collection.

Given that the exhibition is deliberately juxtaposed with its Orientalist progenitor, one is immediately tempted to make comparisons between the two:

The task, however, is surprisingly difficult. ‘Lure of the East’ comprises, in the majority, the views of 19th Century British artists of the Middle East, ranging from outrageously illusionary, super exotic, visions of the harem or over indulgent, sugary biblical tableaux to true to life genre, architectural and landscapes.

Tabrizian, in stark contrast, emphasises the existential, nihilist plight of the individual in the context of both post-revolutionary Iran and the capitalist West, with her series of photo-narratives. This theme she examines through her powerful photo-narratives referencing corporate and personal mass conformity and loss of identity (Beyond the Limits 2000, Silent Majority 2001, Lost Time 2002), exile both from and in the homeland (Border 2005-2006, Tehran 2006) and indifference in the face of crime (Perfect Crime 2003), each leading to loss of reality and invisibility and ultimately to acute mass social depression.

Combining documentary techniques with those of film, Tabrizian openly acknowledges the influence of Iranian cinema in her work. Yet her precisely constructed images and the disposition of the protagonists, digitally manipulated to a highly artificial degree, are equally reminiscent of the contemporary Canadian photographer, Jeff Wall. The resulting stillness evident in each photograph suggests the momentary suspension of time and disbelief, leading viewers to question our own sense of reality.

In her earlier series, Tabrizian fictionalised and abstracted her characters, thus we see from the series Beyond the Limits, the portrayal of the ultimate sacrifice to Western corporate culture as the unidentified office worker makes in his plunge from the top floor of an office block, captured timelessly frozen in mid flight. Silent Majoritytakes the daily exodus of unidentified commuters from the blindingly familiar tube station at Canary Wharf as its point of reference to distill the notion of cultural pointlessness and indifference. This theme is continued in Lost Time but here the work focuses on our reliance on this meaningless corporate identity and sense of belonging and the devastating effect on the individual its loss has when stripped away. Perfect Crime on the other hand, in its momentary snap shot of single motionless figures suspended in time, leaves us no clues as to what has just been perpetrated or who the victim(s) might be– are we, the viewer, to be let in to share in this secret or will it remain forever beyond our grasp? Does it matter – do we care?

Perhaps her most poignant images are those of the BordersSeries. Here, Tabrizian in contrast to her earlier works features real individually identified Iranians, Rasool the taxi driver, Arash, the mechanic, Mahmood the carpet seller and Parvaneh the actress and writer. Each displaced from their homeland and now living in Britain, reflect on their personal and national sense of loss and each in their own way is struggling to accept that their ‘some day, one day’ return to Iran may never happen. Their quest for the greener grass on the other side is failing miserably, and their borders remain resolutely present, with the result that their perceived sense of reality is falling rapidly into oblivion.

Yet, in Tehran, this sense of oblivions is paradoxically transposed to the very place the Iranian exiles dream of. Hardship and isolation are equally sensed in this ruthlessly bitter portrayal of characters playing themselves in a film still, set against the panoramic backdrop of a run-down residential area of the city and presided over by faceless tenements and enigmatic clerics. Paralysis haunts the players and this fragmented uncertainty serves once again to blur the boundary between fiction and reality of documentary and feature film.

By contrast, the Wall House series commissioned on the work of the American architect John Hejduk, breaks away from Tabrizian’s focus on Iran and instead we are treated to an exposition of public versus private. The tables are turned - Big Brother and reality TV are imposed upon us and we are left with the ultimate examination of our own individuality in a life lacking in any sense of purpose. A far cry from ‘Lure of the East’.

Janet Rady is a fine art Curator representing Middle Eastern Artists www.janetradyfineart.com