"EITHER HE'S DEAD OR MY WATCH HAS STOP­PED." GROUCHO MARX (WHILE GETTING THE PATI­ENT'S PULSE)

The expansive installations of Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh, and Hesam Rahmanian transport viewers into a highly distinctive world. The Iranian artist collective creates surprising encounters that draw attention to the urgent political and social conflicts of our age, challenging power mechanisms, normative gender roles, and the art world. The SCHIRN will present the trio’s first solo exhibition in Germany. Based on the principle of work in progress, the artists bring together new and existing works to create immersive installations. The starting point and centerpiece of the exhibition is a monumental floor painting created especially for the SCHIRN—a dense web of detailed narratives and references. It is supplemented by additional works, including sculptures and video works, such as We Are the Eighth of a Kind (2014, in collaboration with the artist and musician Lonnie Holley), From Sea to Dawn (2016), and the new production If I Had Two Paths I Would Choose the Third (2020). The base and center of the trio’s artistic work is their house in Dubai. In the process of living and working together, they create artworks and exhibitions—frequently in an exchange with friends or other artists. The exhibition at the SCHIRN thus also includes two textile sculptures by the Egyptian artist Hoda Tawakol. In accordance with their definition of the collective, the artists work together in their own style as well as independently of one another. Their work returns again and again to the crises in the Near East and revolves around exile and migration. With a melancholy poetry and biting humor, Haerizadeh, Haerizadeh, and Rahmanian transform bleak scenes into caricature-like grotesques that reflect the abstruse nature of the globalized world.