Peybak: XA LA

Dastan presents a solo exhibition of works by Peybak titled “XA LA” at +2. The exhibition will be open on Friday, January 22, 2021 and will be on display for public viewing until February 12, 2021. Their fifth solo exhibition at Dastan, this exhibition features an installation.

Peybak’s work has been exhibited in various solo and group exhibitions at GP & N Vallois Gallery (Paris, France), group exhibitions at Domaine Vranken Pommery (Reims, France), “Animal Figures” at Saint André Abbey-Center for Contemporary Art

(Meymac, France), “Back to the Future” (Paris, France), The Armory Show Art Fair (New York), Fiac (Paris, 2015, 2016 and 2019), a curated group exhibition at Le Tripostal (Lille, France), Art Geneve (Geneva, Switzerland), Abu Dhabi Art Fair (in the curated section), Art Dubai and Contemporary Istanbul. Additionally, Peybak’s work has been featured in Dastan’s booth at Sydney Contemporary 2017, GP & N Vallois Gallery’s booth at Drawing Now (Paris, 2018) and Asia Now Paris,2020).

Peyman Barabadi and Babak Alebrahim Dehkordi, both born in 1984, have been working together as the “unified duo” of Peybak since December 20, 2001. They start working on different parts of every piece together, until they both declare it finished.

Peybak’s “atemporal works, where the gesture’s energy competes with the stroke’s precision, where the same gets confused with the unique, chaos with order”*, are inspired by Persian poetry, mythology and miniature paintings. Coming after “Abrakan’s Room” (2015) and “Abrakan Birth” (2016), in “Abrakan (Appearance)” (2017) and “Zahouk” (2019), the silhouette-like creatures seemed to partially show themselves and come into light. “Xa La” means loss and confusion in Abrakan’s world, the moment before annihilation as Attar of Nishapur puts it in valleys 6 and 7 of his book “Conference of the Birds”.

* Soyer, Barbara. “A Trip” in Peybak, Abrakan “Éclat”, Exhibition Press Material. GP & N Vallois Gallery. Paris. 2017.