Art Aware

Art Aware is a non-profit-making blog that monitors all that’s interesting in the world of contemporary art, literature and culture in Iran and in the Iranian worldwide diaspora. It is a review and commentary of new exhibitions, events and developments in art media in Iran and in the West. I am a working artist and also an academic art historian. Edited and compiled by Dr Aida Foroutan

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Thursday, 29 January 2026

The art of resistance:

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Iranian photographer Ayna Moazzen on identity and building cultural bridges Copyright Courtesy of Ayna Moazzen and Euronews. by Saida Rustam...
Thursday, 22 January 2026

A Bug’s Life

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New London exhibition uses architecture to explore the experiences of Iran’s American diaspora Arash Nassiri’s film installation at London’s...
Friday, 16 January 2026

Reports of Artists Killed by Iranian Regime Draw Outrage and Grief

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Sculptor Mehdi Salahshour and filmmaker Javad Ganji are among the members of Iran’s creative community reportedly killed during anti-governm...
Thursday, 15 January 2026

Iranian Art Communities Respond to Political Unrest

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Protestors in Tehran, 2026. Via social media. Courtesy picture alliance/Zuma Press Wire/Shutterstock and ArtAsiaPacific. by Aisha Traub Chan...

Driving in the Dark

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This piece was written before Iran imposed an internet blackout on 8 January. by Raha Nik-Andish ,  London Review of Books Six months ago I ...
Friday, 2 January 2026

“Tahmina”—a story from Iran

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In this short story translated from Persian, an ordinary day swiftly — and brutally — changes course, with lasting implications. Amir Fallah...
Friday, 19 December 2025

Returning the gaze:

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 Hoda Afshar investigates a colonial obsession Working with an archive of photographs made over a century ago, the artist folds the gaze bac...

Art Gallery of St. Albert highlights the immigrant experience

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Visual artist Mohammad Hossein Abbasi depicts the process immigrants face in rebuilding their lives in a new country built around a differen...
Tuesday, 16 December 2025

150 Years of Iranian Graphic Design

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Courtesy The Daily Heller, Print Magazine. by Steven Heller , The Daily Heller ,  Print Magazine Various books, exhibits and at least one ma...
Friday, 12 December 2025

‘Identity is never fixed. It’s layered, constantly shifting’

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An interview with Iranian-American artist Soraya Sharghi Sharghi’s journey reveals a constant dialogue between discipline and rebellion Sora...
Thursday, 4 December 2025

‘Divine Comedy’

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Iranian Filmmaker Ali Asgari on Satire, Censorship and Absurdities Behind ‘Divine Comedy’: ‘You Show How Silly and Stupid the Rules Are’ Cou...
Thursday, 27 November 2025

Daughter BWASM review

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filthy pot shots from a bad mum and her AI offspring Pilar Corrias, London The Iranian-born US artist cleverly uses AI-generated robot child...
Wednesday, 19 November 2025

Soft Edge of the Blade Vol. 3

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After acclaimed editions in London (Frieze No.9 Cork Street, 2022) and Toronto (Zaal Art Gallery, 2023), “Soft Edge of the Blade” arrives in...
Wednesday, 12 November 2025

Translating Toward Possibility:

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Sarah Faux Interviews Mariam Rahmani by  The Common Friends for over a decade, MARIAM RAHMANI and SARAH FAUX have been connecting for years ...
Thursday, 6 November 2025

“Beginnings”

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The late Iranian American artist’s exhibition exemplified how he expanded the Eurocentric parameters of abstraction. Installation view of MA...

Noble/Savage

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Ali Banisadr’s Mesmerizing Paintings Make Sense of Chaos  Ali Banisadr, installation view of “Noble/Savage” at Olney Gleason, 2025. Photo by...

nameless

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Nairy Baghramian at WIELS — nameless brings together several previously unseen bodies of work in dialogue with the post-industrial architec...
Thursday, 30 October 2025

Raising their Voices: the Iranian artists fighting back

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In Iran, women are forbidden to sing in public. A handful of Berlin ’ s Iranian artists are fighting back with rebellious records. Faravaz F...

Iran and Art in a Cage

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A century of cultural rupture and decline Golestan palace, glory of Iran’s rich arth history. Courtesy Asia Sentinel. by  Amirreza Etasi , A...
Wednesday, 29 October 2025

Real State

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Interview-In Conversation with Shirana Shahbazi About Her Solo Show in Emkan Gallery Shirana Shahbazi, Schaedel-01-2001, c-print on aluminiu...

A Magician of Imagination

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In Dialogue with Farhad Hasanzadeh Interview by Dr. Neda Farnia & Dr. Johari Murray,  CooterMag Born in 1962 in Abadan, Iran, Farhad Has...
Wednesday, 15 October 2025

From migration to rebirth: A story of pain and liberation

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Iranian painter Saye Sohrabi rose from the heart of repression to turn her canvas into a voice for silenced women. Migration wasn’t an escap...

Jafar Panahi’s Cinematic Rebellions

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In the director’s most defiant film yet, a group of Iranians consider killing the man who tortured them in prison. Panahi films a desert sce...

The Armenian Woman, Minoritarian Agency, and the Making of Iranian Modernity, 1860–1979 (New Texts Out Now)

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“We discovered what we call the matrilineal network of activism, spanning from grandmothers to mothers, to daughters, and nieces...”  Houri ...
Thursday, 9 October 2025

The Foot-Licking Demons & Other Strange Things in a 1921 Illustrated Manuscript from Iran

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Courtesy OC. by  Josh Jones ,  OC Few modern writers so remind me of the famous Virginia Woolf quote about fiction as a “spider’s web” more ...
Wednesday, 8 October 2025

Simorgh in Exile:

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Reimagining Iranian Diaspora in Fereshteh Molavi’s Thirty Shadow Birds by Mahdiyeh Ezzati , World Literature Today In Thirty Shadow Birds (...
Friday, 3 October 2025

Contemporary Iranian Art: New Perspectives, Second Edition (New Texts Out Now)

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“What does contemporaneity signify for Iranian artists, and how have they drawn inspiration from contemporary life?” Hamid Keshmirshekan, Co...
Thursday, 2 October 2025

The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran

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#RivetingReviews: Mandy Wight reviews THE NIGHTS ARE QUIET IN TEHRAN by Shida Bazyar, translated by Ruth Martin by Mandy Wight, #RivetingRev...

Filmmaker Homa Sarabi maps her place in the world

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Sarabi's inscribed pieces of parchment drape down to the floor in her office at the Boston Center for the Arts. Courtesy Jesse Costa/WBU...
Thursday, 25 September 2025

Women for Peace: Voices of hope and humanity

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“Women for Peace” is a unique concept-concert that unites voices from around the world to promote reconciliation, hope, and solidarity and p...

Persian Poet: A Woman Made of Fire

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Courtesy Persian Poet and UP Magazine. by Stained Napkins, UP Magazine As a poet, I’m always looking at words throughout the city, whether i...
Thursday, 18 September 2025

This Memoir Is a Bridge to Iranian Solidarity

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Journalists Nilo Tabrizy and Fatemeh Jamalpour discuss the political legacy of women in Iran in “For The Sun After Long Nights” Courtesy Ele...
Sunday, 14 September 2025

Despite red tape from US sanctions, Tehran-based gallery champions Iranian art at The Armory Show

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Owner of O Gallery says her participation affirms ‘importance of cultural dialogue at a time when exchange across borders is increasingly fr...
Thursday, 4 September 2025

‘The Seasick’ exhibition shares stories of Iranian refugees arriving by boat

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Markela Panegyres spoke to artist Elaheh Mahdavi about her and her brother Arman’s recent exhibition The Seasick , at Gallery 1855 in Kaurn...
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Biography

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Dr Aida Foroutan
Aida Foroutan was trained as a painter and graduated with a BSc in Industrial Design from the Alzahra University of Tehran. She relocated to Sweden in 2000, where she worked in theatre and museum curation and exhibited her paintings in Sweden and Germany. A book of her poetry, Forbidden Peace, was published in Stockholm in 2003. She moved to the UK in 2007 to do her Masters degree in Theatre Studies at the University of Manchester, then a PhD there (2008-12) in Art History, entitled ‘The Reception of Surrealism in Iranian Art and Literature’. She has published a number of scholarly articles for peer-reviewed academic journals and one for a Festschrift. Before the pandemic, she convened a successful international conference ‘Modern Iranian Art and Architecture in the Shadow of the Classical Persian Past’ at the John Rylands Library, Deansgate, Manchester. She currently teaches Persian at the University of Manchester.
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