ArtDayMe: The Hour of Disaster: 89–4 Seconds, an exhibition of works by Azim Morakabatchi, curated by Saadat Afzood, is currently on view at Mojdeh Art Gallery.

An exhibition of works by Azim Morakabatchi, titled The Hour of Disaster: 89–4 Seconds, a compelling title that evokes the urgency of the Doomsday Clock, opened on Friday, August 21, 2026, at Mojdeh Art Gallery in Tehran. The exhibition is curated by Saadat Afzood.

The exhibition is part of “Tehran Art Month,” an initiative presented under the title “For the People, For the City, For Art,” taking place across 100 locations throughout the capital. The exhibition opened at Mojdeh Art Gallery as part of the program and will remain on view through September 11, 2026.

This marks the fourth presentation of Azim Morakabatchi’s work at Mojdeh Art Gallery. Born in 1977, Morakabatchi’s work has attracted considerable attention in recent years, and his artworks are held in prominent collections, including Saman Bank, as well as significant private collections. His work Corab was priced at $16,000 at Mojdeh Art Gallery in the winter of 2024.

In the exhibition statement for Morakabatchi’s new exhibition, The Hour of Disaster: 89–4 Seconds, Saadat Afzood writes:

The Hour of Disaster takes its title from the Doomsday Clock, the symbolic clock that represents humanity’s proximity to global catastrophe.

The Doomsday Clock is a metaphorical symbol introduced in 1947 by a group of scientists who had participated in the first project to develop the atomic bomb. The clock represents global crises—including nuclear war, climate change, and destructive technologies—that could potentially lead to the extinction of humanity.

In this clock, time is understood as an imminent threat. Its hands are symbolically adjusted, and whenever humanity faces more serious dangers, the hands move closer to midnight—the symbolic point of annihilation.

Azim Morakabatchi created this series with the intention of conveying this warning to people across the world. The process through which the series has taken shape is interdisciplinary: as the idea moves through text, volume, and painting, it retains its conceptual coherence while simultaneously allowing for reinterpretation within each medium.

In this series, Morakabatchi creates key, highly symbolic elements across different media, drawing viewers into a shared conceptual challenge. The bell, as a historical sign announcing decisive and fateful moments, appears at the center of the composition as a monumental sonic symbol. Human beings, animals, and a withered walnut tree form a constellation of signs pointing to the shared and fragile condition of all forms of life.

The space of the work is timeless and placeless—a quality that underscores the contemporary human condition of exhaustion, disorientation, and confusion.

The Last 89 Seconds did not reach its intended destination in the year it was created. With the outbreak of war and the work’s subsequent non-presentation, the work itself became subject to a fate that it had already anticipated and represented conceptually. One year later, following the change in the Doomsday Clock from 89 to 85 seconds, “Minus Four” was added to the series.

This new work is not simply another piece placed alongside the previous works; rather, it introduces the mechanism of change into the very structure of the series.

In The Last 89 Seconds, time is the subject of the work. In Minus Four, time becomes the mechanism through which the work is produced and continues to exist. Minus Four is not an image of 85 seconds; it is a record of the distance between two temporal states—a distance that becomes shorter with every change and calls for a renewed process of reflection.

From this perspective, Minus Four is a work of the passage of time, rather than an image of a particular moment in time. It is the trace of a real change in the external world that compels the series to redefine its relationship with the present condition.

If The Last 89 Seconds can be understood as being about time, Minus Four was created by time.

At this point, The Hour of Disaster is no longer merely a symbol or a visual reference. It becomes a temporal mechanism that directly determines the condition of the artwork.

The series does not confront the viewer with a fixed image of the future. Instead, it places the viewer before the actual time of the world—a time that is constantly changing, with each change redefining the state that preceded it. The external world, without directly intervening in the creative process, creates the necessity for the work to change.

Thus, the dynamism of the work does not occur through its physical movement, but rather through its ontological condition and through the process by which the work comes into being and continues to exist.

The artwork is no longer a fixed and final object. It becomes an open structure, exposed to time and carrying within itself the possibility of change, expansion, reinterpretation, and recreation.

The Hour of Disaster is a process that has not yet reached its end—a process in which time, the world, and the artwork are changing in parallel.

Now, another four seconds have been lost: only 85 seconds remain before the beginning of catastrophe.

Mojdeh Art Gallery is located at No. 27, 18th East Alley, Allameh Shomali Street, Saadat Abad, Tehran. The gallery is closed on Saturdays and official public holidays.

Photos: S

Photo: Siamak Zomorodi Motlagh