Nūr, a selection of Ehsan Lajevardi's private collection

Nūr, a selection of Ehsan Lajevardi's private collection

The collected series, contain various works of contemporary art. Some of the artworks belong to prominent and well-established artists which naturally have a place in any valuable art collection. Other collected artworks belong to the artists who have created their artworks in a different manner from mainstream, and are non-conformed to contemporary practices.
Collecting artwork was initiated by art sponsor, collector, and the cultural manager of the Lajevardi Foundation, Ehsan Lajevardi. In recent years, his activities as an art graduate, have included setting up exhibitions of a wide range of artists, publishing books and creating opportunities for research and experiment in the contemporary art sphere.
The approach of collecting artworks in Lajevardi Foundation, mirrors the collector’s personal view and interests, and the enjoyment of gathering artworks with distinct ideas behind, and simultaneously pays a closer attention to significant and thought provoking works of art.
Nūr is a selection of Lajevardi Foundation art collection, consisting of 20 pieces by Iranian contemporary artists from early 1970s to early 2010s. In this exhibition, the collector appears as the author and presents the audience with pieces that have been placed next to each other considering a metaphorical and philosophical concept such as "light".
This collection was exhibited in “O Gallery”, in summer of 2020.
Artworks exhibited in Nūr collection bring out multi-layered, deep and complex stimulations. Each of these pieces in a way represents creation, the sublime, the existence, immortality, stagnation, chaos, or change. What they have in common is the preservation and accumulation of artistic imagination as a means of transcending and transforming the sublime and abstract categories, into conceptual and objective phenomena.
The display talks about the society today and the rediscovery of metaphysics, and indicates that there are realities beyond everyday life which affect and enrich our thoughts, experiences and feelings.

"Light" is the language of symbols and spiritual metaphors. Its perceptible meaning is light and its figurative meaning is reminiscent of concepts such as clear and obvious. The word introduces a multi-faceted metaphor that reflects in terms like existence, being, reality, spirit, divinity, knowledge and science.

According to old texts and esoteric literature, the manifestation of divinity and the sublime in their most familiar forms occur through light. Light is defined as a force that regulates turmoil. It has the power to visualize the world, and is equivalent to concepts such as balance, stability, and transition . Light moves between ideas, patterns and objects, linking them together. This movement is the initiation of coming out of darkness and achieving transparency and balance.
Light and darkness are two concepts that both have traces of the other. These two forces are the basis of philosophical dualism in our world. Light initiates life, enlightens and raises awareness. In contrast, darkness is equivalent to dimness, absence and an atmosphere full of ambiguity and bewilderment. These two forces are never separated and each can be understood in opposition to the other.

Shahāb ad-Dīn Suhrawardi, a philosopher who revived philosophical thinking in the Islamic world, writes in Hikmat al-Ishraq: "If there is something in existence that does not need to be defined and known, it is something bright and clear, and there is nothing brighter than light." He goes on to add that "whatever can be an example of reality, truth or objectivity, is either inherently light, or ultimately requires light for its own existence and emergence.”
In Suhrawardi's words, light is an equivalent of reason. An intellect that is intertwined with mysticism and mystical exploration and leads us to awareness and to the way in which the observer and the subject recognize objects and environment. From this point of view, light is an allegory for all reality and clarifies the relationships that the mind establishes between different ideas and objects in order to recognize and understand them.

In this exhibition, light is a metaphor for thinking and looking from a different perspective and also manifests itself as logic and a creative energy that is used to connect the signs, concepts and pieces of thought to each other.