⁨ Solo Exhibition

“THE ARENA”

Alireza Hosseini

Curator: Peyman Rahimizadeh

In this arena, the bull is neither an animal nor the hero of a tragedy; the bull is a “condition.” A bodily condition that comes with all its mass, with all its raw strength, and is defeated from the start. The matador is not the name of an individual; it is the name of an order that knows how to perform victory, how to make defeat spectacular, and how to bring the vanquished to the ground beautifully and defenseless. Here, defeat is not an accident; it is an ancient contract. The statues are not about the moment of the strike; they are about what comes before: the place where the bull still believes that “possibility” exists. This exhibition is a repetition of the eternal defeat, not for sympathy, but to witness its nakedness. The bull loses because it must lose; because the scene is arranged in such a way that victory has only one role. And we, the quiet spectators, with each round of applause, make this performance more real.

As Ernest Hemingway said, bulls appear in the matadors’ nightmares, even though in this unequal battle, it is the bull that dies. Yet the bulls never think about the matadors; not out of bravery, but out of ignorance. They do not know what a matador is, and the first time they see him, they die. Perhaps it is this very unawareness that turns the bull into the ‘eternal loser’; and perhaps it is this excessive knowledge that makes the matador crave repeated victories. Here, the question is not why the bull loses; the question is why we still think the arena is impartial.

Peyman Rahimizadeh

Opening: Jul 31st to Agu 14th, 2026

16 to 20 PM (Closed on Saturdays & Sundays)