Figs of the Temple

Figs of the Temple is a solo exhibition by the Iranian artist Mohammad Piryaee. It runs from 9 October to 6 November 2026 at Parallel Circuit [Deh-Vanak], a programme of Dastan Gallery in Tehran. The gallery's page for the show carries one uncaptioned image. It shows a sculpture: a tiered cage of red wire on a raised base with four legs, around a dark form with a rough surface.

Piryaee makes sculpture and works on paper, and architecture is the thread between them. The sculptures, in ceramic, scorched wood and resin, are abstracted building shapes that often recall Persian and Islamic architecture. His drawings and prints arrive at semi-abstract forms from monuments, interiors and still life. For Stairway to Odessa, at Dastan+2 in 2019, he built a staircase inside the gallery after the Potemkin Stairs in Odessa. The show paired drawings with ceramic and wood pieces, some of them placed on its steps.

Born in Qom in 1985, Piryaee lives in Tehran. He graduated from Kashan University in 2007 with a BA in handicrafts. Lazarus Was Dead (Drawing Collection), his solo show at Manuchehri House in Kashan, came in 2015, and Red Tomb followed at Homa Gallery, Tehran, in 2017. Choom Gallery in Bandar-e Anzali showed Autobiography in 2020. In 2025 Parallel Circuit gave him a solo presentation at Art Dubai, in Bawwaba, a section of the fair curated by Mirjam Varadinis. It set crimson and black sculptures beside drawings of towering monuments. He took part in Good News from Iran in Geneva in 2013 and in Munich in 2014, and the Contemporary Art Museum of Khuzestan in Ahvaz holds his work.

Parallel Circuit is one of several Dastan programmes and holds its own exhibitions in Deh-Vanak; in July and August 2026 it showed What Remains.. by Bita Fayyazi. The gallery started in 2012 as Dastan's Basement, a Tehran space for emerging Iranian art, and launched the gallery +2 in 2015.