Gohar Dashti came crashing onto the Boston arts scene last fall, landing front and center in the MFA’s blockbuster photography exhibit, “She Who Tells A Story”, which featured the moving and controversial work of twelve contemporary Iranian and Arab women photographers. With piercing humor, Dashti allowed us to envision the absurdities of Iranian culture today. In the MFA show’s signature piece, from Dashti’s series “Today’s Life and War”, a newlywed Iranian couple sits nonplussed in a burned-out shell of a car, decorated with festive pink ribbons, in an obvious war zone, the fields around them strewn with detritus and army tanks crawling along in the background (feature image). Now, Robert Klein Gallery is presenting Dashti’s photographs from two of her more recent series, “Volcano” and “Me, She, and the Others” through April 30th at their Ars Libri location in Boston’s South End.
In the series “Me, She, and the Others”, Dashti is uncharacteristically straightforward, all edge and no humor. She presents tryptichs of individual women against a dark backdrop, dressed for work in the left panel, at home in the center, and dressed for a social evening out in the right panel. Each woman gazes directly into the camera, her emotionless expression identical, as her clothing reveals the three selves she inhabits. Of course, Western women also dress differently for varying occasions, but Dashti’s inescapable point is that Iranian women have severely circumscribed choices. To me, the photographs in this series are frank commentary, looking more like an academic study than art. Taken together, they have the air of a police line-up, unblinking and sober.

From the series “Volcano”, 2012”, archival pigment print by Gohar Dashti (courtesy of the artist and Robert Klein Gallery, Boston)
In her most recent series, “Volcano”, Dashti regains her humor, once again utilizing her velvet glove approach to critiquing the Iranian government. The text accompanying this series is a government issued warning about the risk of volcanic activity and the admonition to Iranians to be prepared at all times for its occurrence. That the risk of an active volcano pales in comparison to the daily risks that the citizens of this war-torn country face is the very sharp point. Dashti’s images satirize the warning with groups of people gaily engaged in various everyday activities, oblivious to the “dinosaur in the room”, whose enormous tail in each photograph exposes not only the absurd rarity of volcanic threat but represents the even more ridiculous and archaic sensibility of the government. In each photograph, the cognitive dissonance that Iranians employ in order to live happy, normal lives is strikingly and tenderly evoked.

From the series “Volcano”, 2012”, archival pigment print by Gohar Dashti (courtesy of the artist and Robert Klein Gallery, Boston)
Here, as in the MFA show, Dashti’s images are droll and compelling. Although unabashedly posed, she offers genuine glimpses of Iranian life, humanizing the vilified nation in artfully composed and colorful narratives, all the while administering her trademark irony. Iran has dispensed many Ministers into the international arena, none of whom seem to have succeeded in generating the sympathy that Dashti manages to evoke in Western viewers. Perhaps the Iranian government would make more headway if they gave Dashti an official role, say “Minister of Absurdity”. I’d bet money that she and Jon Stewart could strike an accord.

From the series “Volcano”, 2012”, archival pigment print by Gohar Dashti (courtesy of the artist and Robert Klein Gallery, Boston)
For more information about this exhibit, go to: http://www.robertkleingallery.com/exhibits.php
Feature image: “Bride and Groom, 2008” from the series “Today’s Life and War”, archival pigment print by Gohar Dashti (courtesy of the artist and Robert Klein Gallery, Boston)