Curatorial notes
Abbas Kiarostami made this image, from the film Five, as a meditation on time and space, using a palette of blues and greys. The horizon line dominates, a simple division between sea and sky. There's a constant pull between flatness and depth, it's like the ocean wants to become a field of pure color. The image is grainy, as if the waves have been transformed into something tactile, like sand. Look at the way the white railing zigzags, it’s like a stutter in the image, a reminder of our own presence, how we divide up the world into these rigid structures. Five people stand at the railing, watching the waves. What are they thinking? The picture opens up this space for our own thoughts, as if they are us, and we are them, lost in the waves of time. Kiarostami's work has similarities to that of Hiroshi Sugimoto, who similarly explores the sea. It makes us consider the infinite variations within repetition and how art exists as a set of conversations.