Ehsan Tousi - Deception in the Subject of Burning

The Starting Point of the Collection

Ehsan Tousi, born in 1978, is a member of the Iranian Sculptors Association and has been active in the field of sculpture since 2002. In his new collection entitled "Burning Cannot Be Watched," he has created objects that are preserved in terms of appearance within a mental and objective framework, but in a function different from the industrial dimension, they have stepped into the land of art.

"The idea and construction of this space dates back to a year before the announcement of the coronavirus pandemic. By using materials outside the laws of physics in the creation of his works, he has challenged the subject of the heater and, in a way, targeted the audience's expectations of its function and structure." [1] In his interviews, he mentioned the beginning of the collection in 2019, influenced by social issues and his living environment, and gradually expanded the effects and complications resulting from society in the world around him and sought them in the geography of existence. [2]

Carrying History on a Decayed and Useless Body

In Tousi's sculptures, "function" is disrupted. The heater sculptures, which have a wooden body, now have the potential to burn themselves, and in a way, their turn has come. In the meantime, he has taken the tool and distorted it in the service of his idea. In a closer examination of these objects, we encounter antiquity, rust, breakage, and decay in the texture and details of the surfaces. It is as if these heaters carry history with them and place it before our eyes, and today, in a guise of another kind, they have become "subjects to be burned." So vulnerable that the first burning will be their last.

In part of his statement, he acknowledges: "Today's human, considering the reception of a huge amount of information and data, thinks that he knows a lot, but in reality, he knows nothing and only suffers from illusion, mental nausea, instability, anxiety, and until the end of the road, he only has the opportunity of a flame." [3]

Deception in Representing Reality

Based on the thought that is raised about the representation in art and originates from ancient Greece. The ideal of an artist in this regard is the repetition of presence or the repetition of an image of nature and reality, as well as the effort to simulate it with the original version, so real that it deceives the audience to the point that this model can be considered "seductive representation of reality." [4] We are also faced with the same deception when encountering Tousi's space. In such a way that at first the audience is looking for nostalgia, a loss in the past, and a trace of ancestors in history (Image 1), but over time and by getting closer to the sculptures, they realize that they are the meeting point of the past and the future. Objects that have come from the past in terms of form and appearance and herald the future in terms of structure and context. (Image 2)

"The past itself is incomprehensible and shapeless; and it only has meaning and shape when it is related to a part of the present." (Faramarzi 1984, p. 295) Certainly, every present has a past, and the rewriting of history in art is always seen in the intellectual currents of artists. "Thus, the claim that any knowledge of the past is in a way a misunderstanding is not meaningless. The viewpoint from which we look at history is not outside of history. Our reflection on the past is itself a product of history." [5] Therefore, in examining this collection, we come to a review of historical affairs. The artist has placed history on a cold and decayed body that used to generate heat in the past and confronts us with the depreciation that exists in his view. In his view, the universe is living in a context of burning, and his rusty objects are the perfect representatives of this line of thought. By forcing the audience to watch this burning, he places the viewer at his intended intersection of the past and the future and tries to move the world around and criticizes passivity and silence in the face of the future. [6]