Soheila Sokhanvari, The Private Dancer, 2019

The Private Dancer Sculpture
2019
Wood, Jesmonite, metal, acrylic, automobile paint, tablet.

The sculpture with its monochrome geometric patterns sits on a Brancusi style plinth that has been painted in the artist’s geometric design vocabulary. The actual shape of the sculpture is based on the geometry of the Islamic design pattern that informs Sokhanvari’s art. Islamic geometric patterns have an inherent philosophy of the oneness of God and the vastness of universe. The aperture within the sculpture is an opening that appears as a hole through the center of the sculpture, which viewed from one side looks clear and empty and observed from the other displays a dancing figure like hologram. The dancing figure is that of the Iranian vocalist/ actor pop icon and Sokhanvari’s favorite singer Googoosh, here dancing to her famous song “khalvat” (literally translated to “Solitude”). It is the ultimate story of the woman alone perpetually dancing forever, becoming a Sisyphean character that repeats the same task for eternity, turning in the void that is represented by the rectangular hole in the art piece, highlighting the loneliness of these female artists who had to negotiate the objectification by the patriarchal society and still carve a space for their sexual freedom and the rights to their own bodies. For Sokhanvari Googoosh was a childhood idol, a goddess of music and style and the hologram portrays her as somebody who is unreachable, remote and dreamlike. The sculpture in black and white is symbolic of the positive and the negative way these female artists were perceived by the Iranian society and the ideological division in the country before the revolution of 1979.

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