In 2017 as a part of “Bosch in Bruges” Festival, to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the death of Hieronymus Bosch, Golshiri’s dramaticule Orifeus and Oublietta was performed in front and around Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych The Last Judgment. Golshiri recounts the world of Bosch accompanied by the soprano Sarah Van Mol, actress Juliette de Castille, the choir of Collegium de Dunis and their conductor Ignace Thevelein. The libretto is based on the English translations of the hymn Dies irae and the composition is based on secular and religious works of Burgundian composers together with Alfred Schnittke. The exhibition was curated by Michel Dewilde, Groeningemuseum and Arentshuis.
As Golshiri will discuss after the screening, his dramaticule is inspired by Bosch’s corpus of works and secular polyphonic songs of the epoch, especially those that Bosch and his fraternity openly criticised and opposed, namely The Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady.
For security reasons, only 50 people could attend the final performance, so it was filmed from different angles, followed by a monumental task of editing and mixing with footages that were filmed during the rehearsals. The result is among Golshiri’s most profound statements on the conditions of creative resistance, judgment, and exile.
Barbad Golshiri, born 1982 in Tehran, Iran, studied painting in Tehran. For the past twenty years he has worked in different fields and is considered a multidisciplinary artist. He has had more than a hundred exhibitions. Golshiri’s focus in the past few years has been on cemeteries and making of grave markers, cenotaphs and memorials. He is also a critic and a translator of Samuel Beckett’s dramatic works into Persian. His works are in such collections as the British Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Freiburg Modern Art Museum, Sound Florida University Museum, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, and cemeteries in Iran, France, and Canada. He now resides in France.
Organised by Professor Sarah Wilson (The Courtauld) and Professor Sussan Babaie (The Courtauld) as part of their Frank Davis Memorial Lecture series titled ‘Exiles and Émigrés’.
