US-Based Iranian Artist Taha Heydari Censors His Own Work to Talk About State Control

Taha Heydari, Shooting the Edge, 2017-2019. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy Taha Heydari and Observer. 

by Michael Anthony Farley, Observer

Taha Heydari is having a moment in a big way. With one solo show having opened this week in his hometown of Tehran, another coming up at San Francisco’s Haines Gallery and growing interest from collectors in his adopted East Coast home, the 33-year-old painter is a busy man.

Observer visited Heydari’s studio last month at the School 33 Art Center in Baltimore, where he has been an artist-in-residence since graduating with an M.F.A. from the Maryland Institute College of Art’s (M.I.C.A.) three years ago. A converted 19th century schoolhouse with soaring windows, the bright, cheery setting feels oddly incongruous to Heydari’s often-dark, hyper-contemporary paintings.

One of the smaller, more intimate works bound for “Impact Crater,” Heydari’s solo show at Tehran’s Ab-Anbar gallery, depicts the mummified corpse of Lenin as if viewed through a grainy night-vision camera. It’s an image that manages to be somehow even creepier than its morbid subject matter. Another renders a pixelated explosion from the point-of-view of a first-person-shooter video game. The hand pulling the trigger blurs into the foreground the way a buffering Skype call might, complicating the viewer’s implied relationship to the violence. It recalls the live-streaming footage of conflicts cable news bombarded us with in the days of “Shock-and-Awe” foreign policy. In nearly all of Heydari’s work, references (both subtle and overt) to state control, consumer culture, surveillance and censorship are ambiguously combined and abstracted.

Does Heydari find it weird to have a life and career that straddle two countries with extreme, arguably insane, right-wing governments—governments that have made fear-mongering and hatred of each other an intrinsic part of their respective identities? “Of course!” he laughs. “Growing up in Iran we were surrounded by propaganda about the ‘The Great Satan.’ So I always thought, ‘hmmm…maybe I want to meet this Satan! What’s the devil like?’”

Material Culture art exhibition communicated deep personal experiences to transcend cultural borders

Material Culture was exhibited at the Elga Wimmer PCC, New York City, from April 4 to April 18, 2019.

Material Culture, featured the works of five Iran-born artists who use “nonrepresentational forms” and a range of materials to create a visual language that not only communicates deep personal experiences but also transcends cultural borders.

Maryam Khosrovani. Imprint | Location 3, Brooklyn | 2015 – 2016. Courtesy Global Voices.

by Omid Memarian, The Bridge, Global Voices

Curated by the award-winning independent curator and cultural producer Roya Khadjavi, the show featured the work of Maryam Khosrovani, Aida Izadpanah, Dana Nehdaran, Maryam Palizgir, and Massy Nasser Ghandi.

All but one of the five received their BA in visual art in Iran, from where they each emigrated at various points in their lives. Four of them now live in the United States, and Massy Nasser Ghandi lives in France.

They each work in the abstract mode, creating art that reacts to and comments on the integration of their culture of origin and that of their adoptive countries. Their works incorporate traditional materials such as clay, porcelain, fabric, iron, paint and wood into new forms and techniques that adapt to their new circumstances.

Through line, color and the use of porcelain, clay, iron, wire, gold and linen canvas, these five artists have produced sculptures, constructions and paintings that, in the words of Artscope national correspondent and Material Culture catalogue essayist Nancy Nesvet, allow “no strict cultural allusions or boundaries” and provide “steps toward understanding… [which is] perhaps the purpose of art, to reveal and to provide an understanding of the culture and mind of the artist, and to draw an empathic response from the viewer.” Nesvet says, “Certainly, the artists in this show are successful at that mission.”

Curator Roya Khadjavi, who is based in New York, has focused on the work of young Iranian artists working in and outside Iran, seeking to support their artistic endeavors and facilitate awareness and cultural dialogue between artistic communities. Since 2008 she has led exhibition committee efforts to show the art of the Middle East for institutions including the Guggenheim Museum and Asia Society, where she sat on the steering committee of the critically acclaimed exhibition Iran Modern (2013).

Iranian artist Masoud Akhavanjam to present two works alongside the Venice Biennale

'Dilemma of Man', 2016, Masoud Akhavanjam. Courtesy the artist and Art Critique.

by Katherine Keener, Art Critique

Alongside the Venice Biennale, the GAA Foundation will present their exhibition ‘Personal Structures: open borders.’ The exhibition will be open to the public, free of charge, from May 11th through November 24th and will boast European and non-European artists. The exhibition will call the Palazzo Bembo, Palazzo Mora, and the Giardini Marinaress home for the duration of the Biennale.

Among the artists who will show their works during ‘Personal Structures’ is Iranian sculptor Masoud Akhavanjam. Known for his elegant works in stainless steel, Akhavanjam will exhibit two large scale sculptures at the Giardini Marinaress. Dilemma of Man and Metamorphosis, made out of Akhavanjam’s go-to material, glean in the light resembling mercury if it could be moulded. Each work is highly symbolic for Akhavanjam and serves a greater purpose: to ask those who witness them to do good.

Both Dilemma of Man and Metamorphosis combine multiple figures to create two unique and coherent sculptures that call on Persian mythology, contemporary socio-political themes, and philosophy. Dilemma of Man, which is about four metres tall, plays off the trope of the battle of good and evil within the confines of today’s world. A feathered wing melds into a bat-like wing evoking good and evil, respectively, recalling the metaphor of having an angle on one shoulder and a devil on the other. For Akhavanjam, Dilemma of Man comments on the powers at be today whose choices can do extreme good or evil. Metamorphosis, though smaller in size, is no less powerful. Bringing together attributes of a bull, elephant, and deer, Akhavanjam drew inspiration from Persian mythical figures of the Achaemenid Empire of Iran. By combining animals who are all variants of strength and power, Akhavanjam expresses sentiments of harmonious coexistence.