TODAY IS TOMORROW
Taher Asad-Bahktiari creates an avant-garde reinterpretation of ancient weaving techniques to forge a contemporary identity.
By CHRISTINA MAKRIS
Taher Asad-Bahktiari is a textile artist for whom various identities, disciplines and forms are not just there to be ignored, but instead, woven into an artistic practice that gives him a dexterity to reach a wide range of admirers and collectors. As he prepares for the next phase of his oeuvre, post-pandemic, the artist pauses to reflect on his identity as an artist, how he welcomes serendipity as part of his methodology, how he finds beauty in unexpected places like construction sites, how he upholds a sustainable artistic practice, and shares his thoughts on how we should all slowdown in order to live more artfully.
He is a rising star whose tapestries and other works, such as his crude oil barrels from his “Barrels, Reclaimed series”, grace the lounges of A-Lister homes, and his innovative approach to weaving, has the international art and design set waiting to see just what he will apply his eye and hand to next.
The Iranian-born artist, who spends his time between Tehran, Dubai and New York, hails from a creative family and has ancestral links to the Bakhtiari tribe, who are traditional master weavers. He recently exhibited his Tribal Weave Project at New York Met Breurer, where he worked with nomadic Iranian women on his signature high-pile geometric and abstract shaped gabbeh carpets and kilims, using metallic thread, lace, and shimmering polythurane weaves to update the heritage.
There is an increasing blurring of boundaries of art, design, and craft. Audiences now collect a wide range of coveted objects of beauty; ranging from fashion to fine art to design. In this pursuit of self-expression and identity, Taher’s tapestries and sculptures help discerning collectors explore how expressions of identity can work when they blend time-worn tradition with contemporary living.
Identity is not just about where you live or how many passports you have, it is an attitude, a philosophy. Artists are often perceived as having a specific identity to everybody else. What is your identity as an artist?
I actually think of everybody as being an artist. Every person does something or makes a craft in the context of their own lives. Through this, they convey a message in why they choose to do what to do, how they present themselves in life to others, and we all respond to this. I see myself as an artist because I see everybody else as an artist. I see a surgeon as an artist. I see a dentist as an artist. Of course, in different professions and fields, they call themselves different things. At the end of the day, I think everyone is an artist and how you live your life is your own personal art form.
Everybody is an artist because we make certain choices over others in the pursuit of a good life, a healthy life, a happy life, usually involving beauty. Whether you are a professional, or a mother in a house who raises her family, or whether you are an artisan in a workshop – is everybody an artist because everybody goes through life constantly making choices to do one thing over another?
It is about how you execute the choices you make, and I think each person has an art of life. The love you give to everything that you do, everything that you have, all your belongings, everything that you consume and you use, when you do this with love and do it consciously and authentically, that becomes your lived art. Obviously, some people live it better, some people have a better know-how of how to live artfully and how to maneuver in life to be artful, and to create the beauty they want to create. That is what makes the difference between good dentists and bad dentists because good dentists craft their work in such a beautiful way that they effectively make a sculpture on your teeth. The artful person pays attention to detail and to the methods they use in what they do. That’s what makes you a good professional. It comes down to how finely you do what you do.
In your own artful life, you make certain choices to work with certain traditions, such as the tribal heritage brought into a contemporary context. What would you wish for your audience to understand about this mix?
I want to find an international language. In my art, I do not want to simply use reductive, traditional ethnic motifs, because coming from the Middle East, people may assume my work should be Middle Eastern and ornamental on a surface level. When I am working with Middle Eastern craftmanship, the de facto to my whole way of making is to bring contemporary relevance to it. This new contemporary identity means people can experience my work devoid of a specific label or tradition. A lot of people tell me they do not necessarily know or think the work is from Iran – they think the pieces could be made by an African artist, or anybody from any culture that uses geometric shapes and triangles. For me, it is very important to isolate the work as an object of beauty in itself, with no context. I try to do this by exploring form through use of color. My shapes and my textures do not really change much but my colors do through the serendipity of weaving methods. When I weave, sometimes I will use a loose weave, sometimes a tighter weave and the colors change through this process. It is fascinating to me to play with the methodology and achieve a different effect every time. The method of making can be more interesting than the end-product. I work with the weave and bring different textures into the weave and let it take me on a journey, instead of planning the work as just being a decorative object of design. There is an element of chance. There have been so many masters and so many beautiful carpets of designs and weaves, but no one has really placed lace in a carpet or shown the skeleton of the carpet, how it’s done, how it’s woven. By showing this, I bring contemporary relevance to weaving.
Creating pieces that enrich the environment of your collectors even suggests portals to a different realm because of the traditional methods they are made by, as in some other cultural traditions, like, mingei in Japan, where a simple folk object like a teapot can perform an important part of the ritual of how you live your everyday life. Do you think your works are shorthand for these traditions, influences and rituals and can take collectors to a different time and place?
When you visit museums of design and craft, you can see that craftsmanship and artistic technique was practiced on simple, everyday objects. Plates, pottery, beds, furniture – this was the canvas for that artist. Arts and craft permeated every element of daily existence, in every object. Historically, home interiors were so intricately and carefully crafted, and artists used that craftmanship and that personalized taste and beauty into their entire lifestyle.
The pandemic has been a good opportunity for people to take stock of what they live with and the objects they surround themselves with. Our choices in what we collect have stuck with us through the good days and the bad days of lockdowns and so much uncertainty. Have you seen an uptake in demand or commissions or requests as a result of people staying in one place for so long?
There is a major shift happening. For years fashion was the most important factor of people’s self-expression. It was the way we expressed ourselves to other people and would reinforce our identity. Now, expressions of identity are moving inwards to interior design. And as you can see, for example, everybody talks as much about Kanye West’s style of house or wants to take inspiration from Kim Kardashian’s house as much as her fashion looks. Because your house and interiors are now part of your personal brand. Look at Rick Owens. He started from a fashion label and now the brand has all these interior objects that are just so gorgeous. And it is total 360 immersion: you can wear his clothes, you can own his furniture, and you can have the entire lifestyle.
This means interiors must be as good as fashion for the connoisseur. People now not only care about what they wear but what they want to surround themselves with in their home. There is a new-found respect and attention to your home.
This phenomenon pursuing a total aesthetic life, also suggests the maturation of the consumer. Consumers are becoming more discerning, and they are living what they shop. Just like an art collection is always in a self-portrait of the collector, interior design is also a reflection of the collector. Why do you think it is important to surround our homes with well-made pieces of design?
For everybody, taste eventually evolves. Even with your interiors, even with your clothes. We evolve as people, so taste will, too. Surrounding yourself with timeless pieces is the first step to building your interior’s identity. I believe keeping your aesthetic minimal is the foundation, and then you add pieces that not only speak to you, but are very well crafted. Unless you are the type of collector who say only collects 1960s furniture and you want to collect it for scholarly or historical reasons. Otherwise, you should choose an object to collect wisely, like it will be there for the long run and duration of your life, not a fad.
Design is for life, and that is an important message in our contemporary times where sustainability is now a permanent consideration. What do you do to uphold a sustainable practice?
What I make is actually very sustainable because I work with semi-nomadic people, the women, weavers – it is all hand-made, using all-natural dyes. It is a lengthy process to create these pieces. This longevity infuses the work with a sense of permanence. There is beauty in this, it is lengthy, it comes from a natural place. My artisans raise their own flocks of sheep and once a year they shave the hairs and then they hand-spin the wool. Then they meticulously color it. It is all made by hand, so very slowly. It is a natural, beautiful process which in itself is a green practice. These communities and their way of life are increasingly disappearing. By choosing to work with it, I give it a new look and relevance and maybe the craftmanship can stay with us a little longer. It is green craftmanship.
It almost becomes a form of biodynamic practice because the full ecosystem is there for you to work with. Just like there is a Slow Food movement in cuisine, here you suggest a slow art movement. A big part of sustainability is not just using recycled materials, it is changing the mindset to embrace longevity. To accept that something is going to be part of our life and even beyond that to be passed down the generations. This psychological shift is an important factor in sustainability. Craftmanship is not just for life, it is for many lives. You also use found objects and encountered objects. Why is this important in your creative practice?
Construction site barrels have been a recent source of fascination. I find them in building sites, where they have already had a life, and I upcycle them. They form this interesting, corroded rust color, and they are usually banged up, almost destroyed. I then put layers of resin on them and turn them into side table stools. They have become a signature piece and my gallery in New York and Los Angeles represents them exclusively and they came to international attention when Beyonce bought and was photographed with one.
Something that is just so beaten and battered in the present was originally made for crude oil, it was used by workers for construction who then lit fires in them, carried water in them, even used them as ladders. After all this multi-function it is just left in buildings and over time it loses its use and becomes less precious for the workers because it ages. But then I give them a new look and then I send them off to a new life. Then it ends up in Beyonce’s house.
This is certainly sustainability par excellence, however there is also something ironic about this signature piece. They are after all, oil barrels, vessels of the petrodollar, the global oil industry. Are you making a statement here, whether it is completely intentional or not?
There is an element of that, however, my intentions are not always present when I work. Often, I work with materials or objects like the barrels here, and somehow, they lend me their voice. They have somehow told me what to do and how to do it. For example, I did not really think about the philosophy behind these barrels when I started collecting them and started turning them into side tables and stools. Then realizing the barrels could attain a new function if I gave them a new look. They become brand new again.
You give it a new identity because you can see the potential in the object. You see the object with its future in mind as well, not just its past and not just its present. As an artist, when people read into your work and they report back, are you ever surprised at some of the reactions to your work?
Everyone has their own take on my work, which is important to me. My tapestries for instance, are multifunctional. I don’t like things to be a certain thing, to have one fixed identity. You are not one thing; you are many things. As soon as you become one thing then you are just that one thing – one type of object, and you have turned into a specific something. My tapestries are not one thing. They have lace in them, the skeleton in the works is exposed. Many users do not know what to do with it, but at the same time, that is my message as well. Do what you want with it. If you want to put it on the floor, you can put it on the floor. If you want to put it on the wall, you can put it on the wall. It is multifunctional.
You leave it to the user to assign it an identity. You make it and release it. Does this mean the categories of ‘art’, ‘design’ and ‘craft’ are not of concern to you?
Yes, it is up to them to use my pieces. Some will say to me, the piece is not solid enough for the ground, what if it rips? I say that is exactly the concept, that is exactly what I want, I want it to eventually rip underneath your feet. Old rugs in Iran are often ripped, they will all rip anyway because they are so delicate and thin. The more holes the rug has the cooler it becomes, the more stories it must tell. So, my message to anybody who wants to buy my work is: they have to dare to actually use them. Of course, they can go on the wall, that is the easiest option. However, I want them to explore placing artworks on the floor. Not every artwork has to lack function. Any object can be an art piece. Your bed can be an art piece. Your sheets can be art, your glasses that you drink from, everything can become an artwork.
You advocate things to moving from just being craft or folk or design and to attain a status of art. This assigns aesthetic and critical importance to objects, like a Picasso hanging on a gallery wall. In recent years, weaving and textiles have shifted from being regarded as just decoration to becoming an artistic form in their own right. Museums and institutions in the West are finally paying attention - for instance, the Tate in London had major exhibitions of Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Anni Albers before the pandemic. In the United States, artists such as Faith Ringgold work with weaving and textiles and you see work with quilts. Of course, in Iran and other Middle Eastern countries, these methods have a very long history and a very long language, even functioning as a currency. What do you think the art world and contemporary collectors can learn from those processes that have been in the Middle East for generations, for centuries?
Recently I have realized how as human beings we are so advanced in some ways, but still so primitive as well in a way. When you think about the state of human rights today, when you think about LGBT rights, certainly some advancements have been made in the last ten years or so, but so much is still so new in the context of history.
When we were younger, we did not understand it but now sometimes it still takes me by surprise that human beings have not really evolved much. And no matter what changes happen in a particular society, craftmanship has always been around, steady and flowing in the background. There is now a new spotlight on craftmanship. There is an importance on paying attention to and using older methods of craft, methods that seem traditional and old fashioned for our advanced societies, and it is amazing that people are now getting into it, from the art world and from the design world.
For example, my great aunt, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian worked with mirrors and glass. She introduced that craftmanship to her own contemporary audiences in the 1970s and it helped to legitimize traditional Iranian craftsmanship in the international art market. When artists bring this to international attention, it revives and allows the traditional craftmanship to evolve and survive.
It is a very interesting point that craft has always been there despite human social history – the pace of evolution for both is very different. Something being made by a skilled hand using craftmanship offers important accessibility to the user, because to understand for instance, a triptych in like a Baroque Italian from an Old Master, you probably have to have grown up in that tradition to know what the significance of the figures is and all of that. But to appreciate something that is on a table that you touch and you feel and you eat off it and you sit at, that experience undercuts cultures and influences. It is more immediate; it does not require levels of concepts. You just experience it with your senses. Do you think this pre-conceptual immediacy is something that craftmanship can bring to the artistic audiences and collectors?
It has been overlooked, but it is coming back now. So many designers are interested in creating their own kinds of craftmanship. Artists and designers are taking craftmanship to another level. It used to be okay to mass produce the same object for a number of collectors, everything was the same in every home. Now designers are thinking about the individual piece they want to make and how that particular piece can be unique and gain its own identity when it becomes part of the collector’s collection.
In terms of your own identity, who are you, and where are you going to next?
What I know about my identity is that I am going very slow. I do not want to rush things; I do not want to do things fast. I will never settle for being just a tapestry maker or an artist or a one-sided individual. I like to be able to maneuver in whichever direction I like to go; why should I close any options for myself? I do not want to be greedy with shows or with attention. I discover my identity through a free-flowing style. In the future I may do many things, perhaps take a creative directorship or make more objects, or hold different shows, perhaps interiors, even architecture, possibly fashion – as you can see, it can go in any direction. I like to be free; I like to be everything.
