The Chronicle of Cenmar’s Descent in Kafka’s Castle

Behrang Samadzadegan
February 09  —  March 02, 2018
Pasio

“The Chronicle of Cenmar’s Descent in Kafka’s Castle” is a site-specific installation that is constructed in the scales of Pasio. It was aimed at occupying the entire Pasio space with stair structure providing a route for viewers to walk in a vertical direction.

In his current project, Behrang Samadzadegan is inspired by the two stories, their significant similarities, and the historical situation in which he lives. He understood both stories were about alienation. They both describe absurd bureaucracies, the frustration of an attempt to conduct business with non-transparent, arbitrary systems, and the futile pursuit of unobtainable goals and empty promises. Samadzadegan traces regimes and hierarchies that distort information and knowledge; systems such as politics, aesthetics, and history are regimes, capable of making a subject-matter hollow or sterile. Thus, they could create absurd hierarchies that have no use but to create constant confusion. Image of a fictional stairway, which is usually noticeable in his paintings, was first inspired by Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” and is a recurrent metaphor for “non-arrival.” He is now restudying it in Pasio.

Installation
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