When talking about epochs of the past, a certain level of nostalgia and romanticism is inevitable. Iranian artist Mohsin Keiany’s new body of work Unseen Shahnameh, exhibited at the Sanat Initiative, Karachi, is characteristic of both these qualities, but it extends itself into the context of the mechanical and despotic world of the present.

Taking from the Persian epic Shahnameh, written by Hakim Abul Qasim Mansur later known as Ferdowsi Tusi, and completed in 1010CE, the show features paintings and sculpture. The exhibit’s most interesting and appealing quality is its presentation of the ‘past’. Instead of an entity that is intangible and cloaked in a thick layer of unfamiliar permanence, the past that Keiany presents is a fluid, sentient creature: as innocent as it is wise, as fragile as it is adaptable, and as individualistic as the viewer that confronts it.

Taking Ferdowsi 30 years to complete, and consisting of nearly 60,000 couplets, Shahnameh (also referred to as ‘Book of Kings’) transcribes the myths and histories of the Persian Empire from the creation of the world until the Islamic conquest of Persia in the seventh century. Divided into three ages — the mythical, the heroic and the historical, Shahnameh’s complexity is intensified through its themes of love, war, tragedy, and, most relevant to Keiany, the enigmatic trope of heroes and villains.

Mohsin Keiany’s heroes respond to the contemporary cataclysm with benumbed melancholy and detachment

In ‘Unseen Shahnameh’ characters of the Shahnameh appear as they would if they existed in the modern world. Keiany’s heroes of the epic respond to the contemporary cataclysm with benumbed melancholy and detachment. The striking oil paintings are brimming with a narrative that the stretch of the canvas is unable to contain. The paintings present very monochrome, cluttered scenes featuring characters, horses, armour and calligraphy, all made up using painted depictions of scrap metal, in a perspective that is sharply cropped, conveying the sheer weight (literal and metaphoric) of the subject matter.

Keiany has abandoned the brighter, chromatic palette of his previous works, in favour of a more sombre composition that is overwhelmingly grey. Grey blue and grey purple are used to intensify the displayed action, while ochre and crimson are sparingly used to guide the viewer to the focal point of the ensuing action. Depicting the immortal, formidable heroes and scenes from the Shahnameh as stylised, manufactured automatons is worrying and illicit disturbing connections between history, consumerism and modern warfare.

What is even more unsettling is Keinay’s depiction of modern heroism. Once a valiant soldier, today’s immortalised hero is a mammoth, sinister being: nuclear weapons. The suggestion of man needing someone or something to venerate is indicated in an almost vulgarly jarring way in the show’s three dimensional works. Made entirely from scrap metal, assembled to depict regurgitated heroes that are often larger than life, the sculptures are physical manifestations of an informed, living past. Using cogs, spokes, metal chains, plates, etc, most of which are rusted, the lofty sculpture of Rostam, despite its aggressive stance, evokes pathos. The melodrama created by the size and material is a commentary on contemporary society, and seems to mock both Rostam, as well as the viewer.

Shahnameh has been interpreted and transliterated by countless artists through the ages. Therefore, the catalyst for this work is not original, but that hardly matters because Keiany’s execution is so spectacularly exciting, particularly for an audience that has weaned on contemporary global tensions.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, March 6th, 2016