Rest in Peace: new works by Mamali Shafahi and Domenico Gutknecht

Installation view at the Galerie Mitterrand's booth at ArtParis 2024

In my last post, marking the tenth anniversary of the death of painter David Caille, I wrote that the latest example of David's enduring legacy is his influence on Mamali Shafahi's latest project, Rest in Peace.

Rest in Peace marks a new, more contemplative phase in Mamali's output, and a new example of artistic collaboration. In an unexpected return to a traditional medium, oil pastels (set, jewel-like, in high-relief casings), the series draws together, as if taking stock, all the strands that have run through his work over the past twenty years: the active involvement, in some cases transformation, of others; new technologies and their impact on us all; concern that new generations, focusing on technology, are losing their ancestral memory of traditional cultures, myths and legends; the quest, therefore, to build bridges between our high-tech future and the richness of the traditional past, especially through genetic transmission from parents to children - and back.

Already in his art-school performances, Shafahi sought to provoke the active involvement of teaching staff as well as fellow students. In early photographic projects, he borrowed keys, invaded volunteers’ homes, dressed up in their clothes and had others make fake Polaroid portraits he displayed in installations.

In Paris, he shared a studio with David Caille, a gifted young painter and pupil of Peter Doig in Düsseldorf, who since his earliest days in France was among his closest friends, and, while each continued their individual practice, together they worked on collections of painted ceramic tiles. In 2010, aged 27, David took his own life. This tragedy had a profound impact on Mamali, who turned away from painting, David’s core medium, to focus increasingly on video, film and VR.

It was at this stage that Mamali started investigating parent-child relations as a potential bridge between the rich traditions of the past, our present, and a technology-fuelled future (Daddy Sperm). And so he began to involve his parents, already retired in Iran, in his work: as characters in 3D video projects then as actors and dancers in his experimental film work, transforming them, also, into multiple, dancing digital figures (Nature Morte). This was when he first asked his father, Reza Shafahi, an ex-wrestler then 72, to draw, looking for signs of genetic transmission in their respective work. Quite unexpectedly, Reza has since become an artist in his own right. They have shown together at the Palais de Tokyo, Reza has his own exhibitions, in Iran and abroad, and at 84 and still producing daily, is now the subject of a monograph.

In a further twist in this tale of mutual intergenerational impact, after working, again in collaboration, this time with Iranian artist Ali Eslami, on major VR projects, designed to be experienced by users in immersive, interactive installations, Mamali reinforced links with his cultural background by producing works inspired by the variegated fruits of his father’s imagination, developing them into the flocked epoxy sculptures that have become one of his ‘signatures’ (Heirloom Velvet and subsequent projects). These recall, with almost shamanic force, the ancient pictorial, poetic and storytelling traditions common across cultures, to question the impact of technology on younger generations’ ancestral memory.

It is now ten years since the death of David Caille. As this anniversary approached, amidst geopolitical turmoil on all fronts, and after several years’ intense activity as artist, curator, and art director of numerous projects and spaces, Mamali and his partner, Domenico Gutknecht, withdrew from the bustle of Frieze LA to the quiet of the Californian desert, to work together undisturbed on Rest in Peace.

'Rest in peace' (RIP) is a sentiment deeply rooted in cultures and religious traditions around the world, reflecting a universal desire for solace and tranquility in the face of death. But in a world marked by conflict, turmoil, and uncertainty, the notion also serves as a beacon of hope and a call to action for building a more compassionate and just society. It invites us to reflect on our own lives, values, and priorities, and to strive towards creating a legacy of love, understanding, and peace that transcends our earthly existence. Mamali and Domenico, as they worked together on the new series, saw the concept as working both ways: not only a wish from us, in the present, to the past, but a benevolent message from a watchful past to us now.

Their joint works continue to involve new technologies: they used AI to work through some of the underlying concepts, and scanned their first hand-drawn sketches, to compose them as digital collages, before starting work with the pastels. The resulting pictures are encased in flocked, high-relief surrounds, a prolongation of Mamali’s recent projects, and are intended to be shown in an installation combining other reliefs, sculptures and sand evoking the artists’ desert retreat.

The darkly glowing pastels, whose soft surface suggests tactile interplay with the flocked surrounds, are more nostalgic in feel than anything Mamali has produced before. In style, they look both to Persian traditional painting and its poetic content, and to Western symbolism and the likes of Redon and Vuillard. They combine the well-known language of flowers, as tributes and gifts, with mysterious, bearded figures that Mamali's father calls ‘watchers’, and Mamali and Domenico see as ‘witnesses’.

Witnesses play a crucial role in shaping historical narratives and preserving collective memory. As the custodians of past events, bearing witness to moments of triumph, tragedy, and transformation, they hold the key to the complexities of history. Their testimonies serve as bridges between the past and present, ensuring that the lessons learned from bygone eras are not lost to oblivion. Through their accounts, witnesses imbue history with humanity, offering insights into the lived experiences and emotions that have shaped our world.

Mamali feels that now, as he and Domenico turn to ‘traditional’ painterly works, David Caille is somehow with them, watching over their shoulders in encouragement. The witnesses in their new works hint at that benign presence.