“Plato Explains the Sidereal Eschatology of the Milky Way” is the title of Berlin-based Iranian artist Nader Ahriman’s current show at Klosterfelde. The paintings on view are equally mysterious. Before backdrops of blue skies and abstracted landscapes—stylistically situated somewhere between the early Renaissance and Romanticism—Ahriman arranges mechanical creatures, statuesque figures, and curious props, all interacting enigmatically and sometimes glimpsed through apertures or theatrical prosceniums. For Ahriman, Western philosophy, mythology, art history, and science are elements of one big construction kit, out of which he builds fantastic cosmologies. One could read his scenes as allegorical paintings, systematically deciphering the symbols and allusions, but soon a scholarly reading falls short as Ahriman floats into a dreamlike yet structured surrealism that recalls de Chirico’s “Pittura Metafisica.” By overpainting old canvases—a clearly Duchampian gesture—he further pushes his system of (self-)reference toward a complex, textured matrix of ideas.
