Daddy (Tongue Remix), Mamali & Reza Shafahi: Zaal Art Gallery

Zaal Art Gallery announces “Daddy (Tongue Remix),” a duo exhibition of works by Reza Shafahi (b. 1940, Saveh, Iran) and Mamali Shafahi (b. 1982, Tehran, Iran), opening on February 11, and continuing through March 3, 2024. The third exhibition in a series of conversations and collaborations between father and son, “Daddy (Tongue Remix)” follows an installation in “City Prince/sss” (Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2019) and “Daddy Sperm” (duo exhibition, Club Rhubarb and Situations, New York, 2021).

Mamali and Reza Shafahi’s work has been widely exhibited by Dastan and Zaal Art Gallery, dating back to 2014 when Dastan’s Basement hosted “Broken SD,” a solo exhibition of works by Mamali Shafahi. Their work was most recently included in “Soft Edge of the Blade Vol. 2”, the inaugural show of Zaal Art Gallery (October 2023), and in Art Toronto 2023. Conceived as a space nested within the venue, Focus Room is an initiative by Zaal that reimagines the gallery layout on each iteration. “Daddy (Tongue Remix)” is the first in a series of exhibitions hosted at Focus Room.

Mamali and Reza Shafahi have been collaborating since 2012. Initiated by Mamali under the working title “Daddy Sperm”, the project explores the complexities of family dynamics, using a variety of media including drawings, sculptures, and video installations. “Daddy Sperm” and its evolution were initially inspired by Mamali’s fascination with how children are conceived, or in his own words, “how a drop of the liquid becomes a human being”. This led to an exploration into his relationship with his father, Reza, a retired professional wrestler who at the time, in his early 70s, was recovering from a gambling habit. Mamali persuaded his father to make art, and Reza became increasingly captivated by drawing and painting.

“Daddy (Tongue Remix)” focuses on the tongue, both as a metaphor for language, speech, and verbalization and as the primary organ for the sense of taste. The exhibition explores the mechanical and figurative aspects of the tongue, looking at it as a vehicle for the articulation of thought, communication, and expression, as well as its metaphorical connotations and contexts, such as its sexual allusions. Moreover, in the artists’ native Farsi, ‘[Zabān]’ is the primary word to describe both language and the tongue as an organ, and they have found means to playfully address this (lack) of distinction, as well as language’s definition characteristics in distinguishing different cultures.