My Golden Samovar installation playfully critiques patriarchal norms through a Farsi cultural lens. Primarily ceramic, it features an imbalanced stack of thrown teapots referencing the Persian samovar—an ever-present tea vessel in domestic and courtship rituals—adorned with exaggerated, spitting golden spouts. Doodool Tala (Golden Penis) is a satirical Farsi term mocking the way men perceive their own importance. The 7ft Samovar fountain exaggerates these dynamics, while above it, suspended porcelain “forbidden fruits” form a canopy of ominous, all-seeing eyes.
Nava Derakhshani identifies as a global diasporic artist whose personal and familial histories strongly inform the direction of her multidisciplinary art-making. Her Golden Samovar installation is a cleverly sardonic critique of patriarchy albeit through a post-colonial Farsi perspective. In the center of the space, a custom-designed fountain made from a stack of thrown Persian-style teapots is rendered in an asymmetrical, slightly tilting, off-kilter position. Protruding golden spouts that deliberately resemble penises are situated in all-over arrangement along the fountain, similar to Yayoi Kusama’s playful use of phallic motifs in her 1960s soft sculptures. Plastic tubes connected to the sculptural phalluses transfer water from the fountain to the wide ceramic dishes on the floor surrounding the sculpture. A flock of miniature testicular shapes with eyes are suspended from the ceiling with their gaze directed below at the fountain and the viewer. The application of traditional Persian art & design techniques and explicit body humor effectively scrutinizes male hegemony, especially the long-held views of male sexual physiognomy being synonymous with power and authority.
Even after exiting her designated exhibition space, one cannot seem to escape the playful humor of Derakhshani as her small-scale painting of a sea of disembodied red-pink eyes is placed squarely along the wall of the back stairway near the restroom - a not-so-subtle reminder for viewers that literally all eyes are on them wherever they stand.
~ By Liam Otero for Whitehot Magazine, March 10, 2025
