Inside Iranian Artist-Collector Fereydoun Ave's Paris Apartment

The various homes of artist, critic, curator and art patron Fereydoun Ave are akin to visual diaries where artwork and design objects mix in lively aesthetic feast, writes Rebecca Anne Proctor

Apline grey canapé, Chinese Buddha from the 16th century and artworks by Afshan Daneshvar, Fereydoun Ave and Charles Hossein Zenderoudi. Courtesy of Sebastian Böttcher and Harper's Bazaar.

 by Rebecca Proctor, Harper's Bazaar

It’s a cool wintry evening in Neuilly-sur-Seine, the upscale French commune just west of Paris. Fereydoun Ave’s apartment is dim-lit and cosy – an artistic refuge against a forlorn night sky in the heart of winter. Anyone well versed in Middle Eastern art will be familiar with Ave’s tireless work. The artist-cum-curator opens the door, his signature dark-rimmed glasses greeting me in from the unfamiliar cold outdoors, and my first proper meeting with the man considered a legendary promoter of Iranian artists begins. “The big word to describe what I do is collage,” says Ave as he makes me some tea. The various interconnecting rooms of his apartment are very much decorated along that strand – “a collage” of a multitude of artworks, furniture, books, paper and objects.

They seem to be have been displayed in their current location gradually over time. “I am 74 years old and I have been through various stages and various countries and various fashions but what interests me now is to have stuff around me that stimulates me,” says Ave. “I don’t collect based on what is most expensive next year or from a chronological or historical point of view but always based on line, colour and feeling.” And while the general ambiance of Ave’s Parisian abode is well kept and orderly, there a slight sense of clutter not unlike what one would find in an artist’s studio. “The background of my home is a lot based on how one creates a picture,” he continues. “The rest is assemblage and collage. The apartment has grown over time. “You start from the basics and it keeps growing if you are a collector.”

Bookcases line the walls as do Ave’s various works on paper and canvas. These are interspersed with a 16th-century Chinese Buddha sculpture, Le Corbusier furniture, works by Iranian greats such as Hossein Zenderoudi, Farshad Moshiri, Reza Aramesh, Afsan Daneshvar and Shahla Hosseini, and pieces by his dear friend, late artist Cy Twombly. Situated around an ever-expanding display of objets d’art are also variously placed taxidermy owls.

Body Politics in Iranian Art - Episode 1

"Formless, Female"

Ghazaleh Hedayat, The Sound of my Hair. Courtesy Aesopia.

by Dafne Gotink, Aesopia

In the last few years, the international art world has taken up a fascination for Iranian art, making exhibitions of this art outside Iran more and more common. Iranian contemporary artists seem to have especially been gaining popularity among a western audience, often because of a politically critical stance and rejection of the strict Islamic laws in the country, which appeal to a western sense of relatability. The exhibited art is often seen as a brave counter culture against a regime that does not have the best image in western countries. But in the middle of all this attention, I feel there is a lack of contextualizing, international research on this art, especially when it is involved with politics. If we want to understand how a work of art can be subversive, provocative, or a threat to those who are in power, we have to examine how it acts against the logic of the dominant power structure. In other words, provocation depends entirely on context and the norms of the society it is based in. This knowledge seems to be little, if not absent, in the hype around many Middle Eastern artists in the West. Which is tragic if we realize that art inside Iran, even though thriving, is subjected to the watchful eyes and control of the authorities. If we want to grant some liberation to an art production that is -in my eyes- wildly interesting, to release it from being caught between international misunderstanding and national censorship, it is necessary to do research on a small, direct scale. We have to look at how art works operate and how they can be analyzed within their political context.

The human body is one of the most visual and noticeable domains in which power is expressed in Iran’s public life. It is a place of expressing individuality and identity, but also a place on which power, both subtle and explicit, is exercised. Interfering with the normal body-power relation in a society, is one thing. But in Iran, art itself is tied to certain rules of modesty: bodies on canvas or in copper have to obey the same rules as the bodies of flesh and blood. Since exhibitions belong to the public sphere, all art shows are checked, which makes it a difficult place to express critique. One of the strategies that young Iranian artists use, in order to make works of art about the human body without being censored, is separating form and content. A distinction between what we can see, and what realms of thought, association and imagination it opens behind our eyes. This is the first of three episodes, based on my 2016 master thesis, in which I wrote about case studies from different Iranian artists, all living and working within the borders of Iran, who use this strategy. This episode is about the work from two young artists, Ghazaleh Hedayat and Mona Aghababaee, who both investigate what it is to have a female body in Iran, in their very own, abstract ways. Doing so, they illustrate the thin line on which acceptable provocation takes place, the place of critical innovation and resilience.

Reimagining the ’70s Tehran Music Scene, One Party at a Time

Disco Tehran, a performance project and party that combines live music and D.J. sets, recalls the music scene of 1970s Tehran.Credit: Devin Yalkin for The New York Times. Courtesy NY Times.

by Sasha von Oldershausen, New York Times

In the stories Arya Ghavamian and Mani Nilchiani’s parents told them, there was dancing. European and American expats mingled with Iranians in the neon glow of Tehran’s clubs, which pulsed with music by the Beatles and Iranian pop stars Hayedeh and Googoosh. Liquor wasn’t contraband then, and the city was a vibrant artistic hub.

Now, Ghavamian and Nilchiani are reimagining the cultural moment that they never experienced firsthand — the Tehran music scene of the 1970s, which came to an abrupt end after the Iranian Revolution of 1979 replaced a Western-allied government with today’s Islamic Republic. A year ago, the pair began organizing Disco Tehran, a performance project and party that combines live music and D.J. sets, in New York. Though the parties often spotlight Iranian musicians like the Farsi funk group Mitra Sumara, they also feature a wide array of world music, electronic music and noise art.

“The reference of Disco Tehran is to a point in time when channels of cultural transactions and exchange were wide and open and flowing,” said Nilchiani, 32, a professor at Parsons who also works at an international design firm. “That’s what we aspire to be.”

In recent months, the parties packed spaces like Home Sweet Home and Le Bain at the Standard Hotel in Manhattan, attracting many beyond the Iranian diaspora. On Friday, the event returns to Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn, where Alsarah & the Nubatones, a Sudanese-American retro pop group, and Nilchiani’s own Sufi rock band Tan Haw will perform live, and four D.J.s will spin tunes from the Middle East, Latin America and Africa, as well as electronic music and techno.