This rose, this rose, this rose”

Gertrude Stein

I am sure that all of you have heard about dzen Buddhism and dzen koans. (if not look up the encyclopedia there is no time for explanation). Anyway let’s start with dzen koan. The teacher asks from his student: “Why the cat has been described next to Buddha who enters Kiot temple in the Nirvana?” The student tries to answer with chain of questions “is the cat in the Nirvana itself, does he express ignorance or the Buddha’s inside animal world or is he companion for Buddha?” The teacher is astonished at the student’s stupidity: “What a strange word circulation! Shut up and listen! But why is not there a mouse? Why is not there crane-headed priest, why is not there the white horse which is broke by nuns or the hearts with 4 fired feet or the manure mountain which creates a butterfly? But why is not there your wife or your spider which weights 100 pounds or your mother who flies against the wind? Everything is very simple: the cat has been described, because the painter has painted the picture of the cat!

Perhaps you would like to ask what is relationship between this story and Farid Rasulov’s exhibition? Straight! Look, the painter has painted a curved spoon, a broken cup, a broken pot, spoiled audio cassette, a power point come off the wall and electric point. I feel like to say “These are all worthless parts of our life. It is the reflection of the decline of the humanity, the manifestation of the global depression, the time which the society is rolling down the bottom of the hell”. But not at all, not the same as we think! The painter just has described a curved spoon, a broken cup, a broken pot, spoiled audio cassette, a power point come off the wall and electric point. It is no need to search the things that are not or have not been intended to be in the pictures. Farid Rasulov is a concrete artist (I am talking only about this exhibition, but I can not say my opinions about this young and hopeful art student’s entire creation). What is the essence of such creation? The essence of this creation is that it always tries to keep its audience awake with shaking their head, beating their neck and head and tries to keep away its audience from pure dreams, stupid fantasies and useless wishes. All wisdom schools say the same thing the human is alive when he is in himself, he is here and situates here in present time. In the present time when he is in the past and in the future he flies among the clouds, because 99% people search either the past in their dreams or the future which does not exist yet in their dreams – this human just does not exist. He is here physically but he is dead spiritually. To wake up and find himself he must bring his fling mind back. If you observe the people who are asleep while they walk, their careful looks then you can understand that they are zombie No it is not about horror films of Hollywood, everything is so real and that is why so dangerous. These are alive dead because of lot of endless information which comes from everywhere-they are around us, we meet them every day, even our close people belong to it. But how should we wake them up? Only with the shock therapy methods which are used by dzen and Sufi scholars with thinking about present, this moment, existing space at this moment, to make people see simple life that they live every day with a curved spoon, a broken cup, a broken pot, spoiled audio cassette, a power point come off the wall and electric point, and a lamp. At last to make them start to live...

© Teymur Daimi