Khandan Ghaderi’s metal birds were scattered all around Farvahar Gallery. In the past 20 years, these birds have multiplied in number more than real birds in Iran! Apparently, their taken from Ashura ritual. They are among the well-known motifs of Iranian art of metal. In a certain respect, they resemble the colourful angels of miniatures, not very popular historically yet popular in the past twenty years to make the ‘spiritual art’ of these decades look authentically ‘Iranian’. In these years, the birds have sat on shoulders of all sorts of modern, pre- and post-modern statues (see this one for instance): like the fake palm trees of Tehran municipality which glow in the dark: their reference point is clear, their function not.
