Sept. 1, 2011- Oct. `6, 2011
Other Gallery, Beijing, China
Nothing Gold Can Stay is a solo exhibition by Iranian-born, Berlin-based artist Shahram Entekhabi. The exhibition’s title is from one of the most celebrated poems by Robert Frost. Consisting of only eight lines with that last being “nothing gold can stay,” Frost’s opus is not only stripped down to the most essential but uses gold as metaphor to lament the fall from Eden via a tree’s fecund beauty and eventual decay. But beauty is used by Frost to underscore its temporality and fleeting characteristic, and thus the poem’s subtext is that we should concerns ourselves with loftier endeavors during our brief, human existence. Shahram Entekhabi thematically uses Frost’s poem to investigate value as well as other themes but within a contemporary context. Whereas Frost alluded to nature to question society’s material pursuits, Entekhabi challenges the premium placed on oil as global commodity, shines light on cultural misunderstandings between East and West, as well as commenting on the condition of exile that the artist finds himself living as a foreigner in Berlin. The exhibition consists of painting, work-on-paper, video, and sculpture.
Raul Zamudio
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