An Artist's Tale

Farideh Lashai, Keep Your Interior Empty of Food that You Mayest Behold Therein the Light of Interior (video still), 2010-2012, Painting with projected animation and sound; oil, acrylic and graphite on canvas, 71 x 78.75 in / 180 x 200 cm. Courtesy of Leila Heller Gallery.

by Doug McClemont, The Huffington Post

Storytelling has been an integral part of life in the Middle East -- and Iran in particular -- for centuries. Whether spoken in the streets, played as a game or painted on a canvas, Iranian folkloric tradition, with its uniquely theatrical and magical approach to the question of what it means to be a denizen of the earth, traverses regions and generations. Fairy tales, jokes, religious allegories, and animal legends have long been a part of a continuing oral and visual history, though the number of Naghals (traditional Persian storytellers who narrate painted scenes) has dwindled in recent decades. Still, elaborate storytelling in all forms remains ubiquitous, and to be Iranian means having the ability to suspend one's disbelief and succumb to the sometimes troubling, sometimes beautiful details of an oft-told tale.

Today if a story from the East makes its way in a westerly direction, it is not likely a tale from this rich, uplifting tradition but rather a news item that brings with it tragic or politically divisive information. These accounts are often colored by the lens of an entrenched xenophobia and fraught with inaccuracies. Rare are the bits of news that can inspire us with a meaningful artistic charge. But take for example the storied life of Iranian painter and writer Farideh Lashai. The artist, who died in February after a battle with cancer, was nothing short of a national treasure in the country of her birth. A humanist and lifelong painter who also published the memoir entitled Shal Bamu (The Jackal Came) in 2003 and translated seven plays of Bertolt Brecht, effectively introducing his writings to the Iranian public for the first time. She was a socially aware artistic presence in one of the planet's many male-dominated cultures. Respect for the artist and renown in her homeland are evidenced by the four days of front page newspaper coverage in Tehran that announced her passing and recounted her artistic life. Several documentary stories were produced within weeks of her death and aired on the Farsi language edition of the BBC as well as Voice of America News.

Cinema and Censorship

Iran's Farhadi and China's Jia make Cannes splash

From left, directer Asghar Farhadi, actors Berenice Bejo and Ali Mosaffa listen to questions during a press conference for the film The Past at the 66th international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Friday, May 17, 2013. Photo Courtesy AP /Virginia Mayo.

by Jill Lawless, The Associated Press

Two directors from countries with tough film censorship brought bold and probing movies to the Cannes Film Festival on Friday — one exploring China's social problems, the other delving into the mysteries of the human heart.

Jia Zhangke's "A Touch of Sin" depicts facets of fast-changing China the government prefers to avoid: corruption, greed, violent crime and the growing gap between economic winners and losers.

"The Past," by Academy Award-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, is an unsparing tale of domestic upheaval, set in and around Paris and made with a largely French cast.

Both films are competing for Cannes' top prize, the Palme d'Or — and both have been cleared for release in their homelands, where filmmakers often fall foul of restrictions.

Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has approved "The Past" for screening, and "A Touch of Sin" is due to open in China in the fall.

The two directors are pleased their films will be seen at home, but they gave very different descriptions of working in settings where official censorship is an everyday reality.

Fluffing the Pillows

Iranian born, Berlin-based artist Nairy Baghramian exhibits at MIT List Visual Arts Center

Showing: May 9-July 14, 2013

Installation view: Nairy Baghramian: Fluffing the Pillows (Moorings, Gurneys, Silos, Mops, News Rack, Railing), 2012-13. Image Courtesy: MIT List Visual Arts Center and Artdaily.

The MIT List Visual Arts Center presents Nairy Baghramian: Fluffing the Pillows (Moorings, Gurneys, Silos, Mops News Rack, Railing) an exhibition by Iranian born, Berlin-based artist Nairy Baghramian.  Baghramian uses disparate tropes and motifs drawn from a variety of sources—from interior design to physiology—in her investigation of sculptural form. With a keen sense of traditional sculptural concerns such as material and volume, her work plays on the supposed distinctions between decoration and function, industrial and handmade, commodity and art object.  Her work has also centered on the political and social relations implied by objects and the site of display, in particular on the exhibition space as a type of interior, where affect and experience increasingly conflict with luxury and leisure. 

For this commissioned installation, Baghramian abstracts materials and forms derived from utilitarian and maritime objects, drawing out the formal and creative processes that define notions of the ‘sculptural.’ The exhibition centers on groups of forms, such as Silos, Gurneys, and Moorings, each sited in relation to the museum’s architecture. Her Silos share their name with a container or structure used to store bulk or industrial materials. These seemingly soft yet solid forms, like those used to hold or transport materials, are created out of sailing fabric, rubber, and pleather. Made from chrome-plated poles, Gurneys—a term to describe wheeled stretchers—are used to support the formless sacks. Baghramian’s Moorings are named after objects that are used to moor, or secure, boats in place at port. Cast in aluminum, their shape is derived from the large hooks that crane operators use to lift commercial cargo containers. A news rack displays a glossy publication, Baghramian’s exhibition catalog, disguised as an upscale boating magazine. The artist brings these forms and their complex associations—boating and sailing, trade and cargo, the labor of industry, service, and stevedores—into the museum as a means to investigate gendered notions of labor and craft.

Female Warriors of Art at Tate Modern

by Karen Ruimy, The Huffington Post, UK

As I was sitting at the Buying Committee of the Tate Modern, my eyes were arrested in awe and also complete ignorance by a piece from an artist I did not know about, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian. I was struck by the strength of her art.

The fact that she is a woman working in Iran, in her 80s, made her even more striking. The committee could not complete the purchase. My heart was so sure: this is a major artist, from the depth of the Middle East, this area of the world that is going through some dark ages. She is a star, we cannot let this piece go, let's find a solution.

What made me think of the strength I found in Louise Bourgeois? I still cannot help comparing those women and their force in their art.

So I started to find out about Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian. I found she spent her earlier years in New York, studied at Parsons School of Design and Cornell University, collaborated with Warhol, was friends with Pollock, De Kooning and many other geniuses. But she decided to go back to her country where she developed her art with traditional Iranian crafts like reverse glass painting, cut mirrors and Sufi symbolism.

This woman travelled to America and Paris searching for art education. And she always tried to come back to her land despite so much segregation for her as a woman, as an artist-woman... her art was confiscated and burned during the revolution. And eventually she went back to live in her country.

Meditations of Freedom

Europe exposed to Mousavi's art

 Berlin Art Academy to display artworks of Iran's opposition leader Mousavi

Courtesy Oye Times

by Cyrus Green, Oye Times

An arts institution in the German capital has decided to showcase 28 artworks created by Mir Hossein Mousavi, an Iranian opposition leader currently under house arrest for more than two years.

The Akademie der Künste (Academy of the Arts) in Berlin, the oldest and one of the most prestigious cultural institutions in Germany, says it is to hold a two-week exhibition in which the paintings of Mir Hossein Mousavi will be displayed before the public.

The showcase will get underway on 6 June, just days before Iranians go to the polls to choose a new president. It will also coincide with the fourth anniversary of the widely contested 2009 presidential.

The opening ceremony will be attended by human rights lawyer and Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, as well as top Mousavi advisor Ardershir Amir-Arjomand.

Hamid Hamidi, one of the organisers of the display, told Deutsche Welle that one of the goals of the event was to present Mousavi’s thoughts to a European public.

After stepping down as Iran’s last prime minister in 1988, Mousavi, a painter and an architect, devoted much of his time to the arts and would take over the presidency of the newly founded Academy of Arts in 1998.

Iranian Peacemakers

Iranian artists collaborate in the name of peace, in the form of a new exhibition at the Opera Gallery, London, entitled Peace from the Bottom of my Art

 

Untitled 2009-2013, by Ahmad Morshedloo. Courtesy The Majalla.

by Tara Aghdashloo, The Majalla

The international community does not really expect to read the words ‘peace’ and ‘Iran’ in one sentence, even though peace is a desperately desired by Iranians. Because of this contradiction, Peace from the Bottom of My Art, the cleverly titled exhibition of Iranian artists at the Opera Gallery, is a timely effort.

The curators, Leila Varasteh and Vida Zaim, approached nearly eighty artists and selected fifty-eight works to display in a gallery with a capacity of twenty-five. “We wanted the artists to express their inner emotions about peace and how they view it in their mind and in their heart,” Zaim said to The Majalla. Most of the works, except for a dozen or so, were created for the exhibition and in response to this theme. Throughout the show, it becomes clear that the question of peace runs deep in the veins of Iranian artists.

On the opening night the room was buzzing with bubbles, so much so that the walls and the art were barely visible. “We wanted to introduce works of emerging artists as well as established ones, especially those who haven’t been introduced through auctions and such,” Zaim says. That range is palpable, as the works of big names such as Parviz Tanavoli (the famed highest-selling Iranian artist) and Koorosh Shishegaran were hung side-by-side with the work of lesser-known artists.

Curvature of Time

Artist Shahla Hosseini’s Dubai exhibition 

For the artist, life has taken on a new meaning after the death of her mother, just as the knick-knacks in her quirky boxes

Hosseini’s boxes contain abstract photographs and objects such as strands of hair and medicine bottles. Courtesy Gulf News

by Jyoti Kalsi, Gulf News

Iranian artist Shahla Hosseini’s latest exhibition, titled “Curvature of Time”, is a poignant tribute to her mother and an attempt to come to terms with a world without her. Through her mystical and meditative mixed-media collages in boxes, and paintings on fabric, the artist expresses her grief and feeling of vulnerability after the death of her mother earlier this year, and contemplates her changed perspective of the world and of life. The simple yet profound artworks invite viewers to reflect on the perennial flow of time and the delicate balance between life and death.

“Losing your parents makes you feel so extremely vulnerable. The meaning of life changes completely and it is a struggle to understand this changed world and regain your balance,” Hosseini says. She has tried to do this through her quirky boxes, filled with various knick-knacks. The artist is well known for such boxes. She began making them over three decades ago, as a way of dealing with the turmoil of the war between Iran and Iraq. Her latest boxes are an intriguing mix of abstract photographs, scientific graphs and drawings, medical paraphernalia such as bones, medicine bottles and respiratory charts, and a variety of found objects such as electrical switches, metal springs and wires, toy animals, pieces from the artist’s old sculptures, parts from broken-down machines and strands of hair.