Soft colors fill the surface of much of the complexion of the works of Faisal Habibi. Curves and contortion in the mix of many details in each of the artworks. As if Faisal tries to grasp the very essence of materials he is interested in. Material culture, a reality in which human thoughts and behaviors grounded in materials, objects and architecture surround them, resembles Faisal’s artistic approach.
Taken from the process of dough making, the title Stretch & Fold refers to the highs and lows of the artist’s feelings and emotions, having to get through this difficult era of many kinds of adaptation, just like all of us generally. Externally, Stretch and Fold may also lead to the idea of the interrelationship between human and the production, the consumption, and the placement as well as the environment around objects and materials. A path to understand ways of consuming and interacting with objects (that probably depend on our understanding of how the object was produced, distributed, and placed).
The stretching of the mixed ingredients to make a dough, and then folding them just to stretch again, or maybe punch them a little bit. Kind of similar to what life provides us. Life extracts every bit of us by throwing us into many different kinds of situations until, in one way or another, we could have our own way to taste the very heart of life. Stretch and Fold also means distance-stretching and space-folding. Since the beginning of the internet era, we perceive (almost) everything differently. The way we determine time and space is changing.
What is distance? What is time? What is space? The internet and the pandemic disrupt our ability to perceive the present. Possibly a glitch of perception towards our physical surroundings. As James Bridle stated in his book New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future (Verso, 2018): “The network is continuously, deliberately, and unknowingly created. Living in a new dark age requires acknowledging such contradictions and uncertainties, such states of practical unknowing… It denies the bonds of time, space, and individual experience that characterise our inability to think the challenges of a new dark age.”
We live in a world where we produce so many objects that we cannot comprehend. Thousands of thousands of choices for the need of a functional object. We cannot simply wear an outfit without thinking about where it was made, who made it, or what it represents. Even more, we often consider its relationship to a certain social or economic status to gain and access a certain kind of position in society. The object’s practical, social, and political functions. Yes, they have already been there within our culture and society for centuries. But then comes industrialization, the internet and globalization. We have more and more needs for things we need.
A Material Transaction
Shapes and colors. Objects and Space. Plywood and plexiglass. Faisal’s artworks seem to point out the in-betweens. The unknown and yet we perceived. It is not merely formal compositional-centered artworks. It is a complex circular idea of the essence, the function, and the placement of materials in the age of the anthropocene. We see objects without realizing its relationship with the environment. We use objects without realizing the essence of its materials. We are merely the consumers. The artworks being displayed at Jarmuschek + Partner represent our understanding toward the objects (and its industry) we produce, distribute, and consume.
Perceiving Faisal Habibi’s recent works, meaning we need to elaborate the relationship between objects and its materials, objects and its function toward our needs and body, objects and the space in which it was placed, and its socio-political effects within our society. Such complexities within a presentation of astounding drawings and wall-hanging sculptural artworks. The tendency to mix different kinds of materials in a series of sculptural artworks each entitled This Thing (from 47 to 52) provokes us to think about a squeezed or folded space, of a certain room or architecture full of objects. The cut-offs of familiar objects we find in a certain room with a touch of vibrant colors.
All of the sculptural artworks are produced in strict dimensions. Objects and materials within each artworks are cut precisely and intentionally. Once the audience is immersed in Faisal’s eagerness to mix and match many objects, the exhibition also invites the audience to dig a little bit more about Faisal’s drawings, the in-betweens of his sculptures and his mind. He draws both firm single lines as well as colored and stacked bold lines. A combination of both his artwork study and the manifestation of his complex ideas. The sculpture and the drawing, the stretch and fold of Faisal Habibi recent artistic explorations. Stretch and Fold thus represents a specific extraction of a relationship between the artist’s understanding and ability to perceive objects and his ability to produce ‘new objects.’
(Curatorial text for Faisal Habibi’s Stretch & Fold, 22 June – 18 September 2021, Jarmuschek + Partner, Berlin, Germany)