Silence Spoken and a Cry in the Dark:

Bani Khoshnoudi at the Vanishing Point

A director considers stills from her latest film as sources of infinite mourning for Iran’s past—and collective hope for its future.

A still from Noghteh-e-Goriz (The Vanishing Point). 2025. Iran/USA/France. Courtesy Bani Khoshnoudi.

by Bani Khoshnoudi, MoMA Magazine

Filmmaker and artist Bani Khoshnoudi was born in Tehran and emigrated to the United States as a child during the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Beginning in the late 1990s, she returned to Iran regularly to see family and make films, which explore themes of daily life under the Iranian regime and a long-running resistance. After her film about the 2009 Green Movement was banned by the Lebanese government, who called it an affront to the Iranian regime, she was permanently exiled from the country of her birth; today she resides in Mexico and France.

In her newest film, The Vanishing Point, which screens in MoMA’s Doc Fortnight festival on March 6 and 7, the artist delves into her family history through archives and years of diaristic filming in her home country, connecting the lasting effects of state violence that impacted her own family with present-day protest movements. In this personal essay, Khoshnoudi reflects on the “vanishing point” from which her work emerged, and reckons with the past from an uncertain present. —Sophie Cavoulacos, Associate Curator, Department of Film

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When I packed the last boxes of objects left in my grandparents’ home in Tehran, I did not know when I would see them again. Exactly 10 years later, when they finally reached me in Europe, I discovered what had seemed important for me to keep. While packing, I didn’t quite know why I should keep these particular objects or how I would use them later. I only knew that for some reason I had to. What I kept, besides family photo albums, was a small selection of what surrounded me in the last house I inhabited in Tehran: everyday objects, things from a distant past, and others that I had meticulously collected over the years. Paraphernalia attesting to a time that would soon disappear, at least for me. It was the last time I would walk down those streets.

Artist invites public to tune out to tune in, as part of new local exhibition

Artist Abbas Zahedi on his new artist residency at the Stanley Picker Gallery

Photo credit: Valentina Vinciarelli. Courtesy Kingston Courier.

by Valentina Vinciarelli, Kingston Courier

There is some art which can only be appreciated through meticulous focus. Think Hieronymus Bosch or Pieter Bruegel the Elder, whose paintings are saturated with masterly minutiae. However, there is other art which can only be appreciated through a surrender of rational scrutiny; art which exists in the blur of an unfocused eye. The artwork by London-based British Iranian artist Abbas Zahedi is of this brilliant second kind. 

Zahedi’s work is often described as an inquiry into “dissociative realism”. He achieves this through an interdisciplinary approach which appeals simultaneously to numerous senses – sight and hearing – to allow the artworks, and himself, to hover between the realms of reality and dissociation. 

“In my own practice, I’m quite interested in this role of dissociation,” said Zahedi, whose latest sonic work is currently exhibited at the Stanley Picker Gallery. “I noticed that when I’m in this dissociated condition, I kind of lose touch with the world, with my body, the surroundings, but somehow the sounds still carry through.” 

Composed of chromed forms with trumpet-like endings, Zahedi’s new installations stretch vertically and horizontally within the gallery space. Low, resonant tones echo around the room. It remains intentionally unclear whether the sound is produced by the sculptures or by the space they occupy. As a result, the distinction between interior and exterior begins to blur.

90 Works by Ardeshir Mohassess

LACMA’s New Acquisition

Ardeshir Mohassess, Census 1, 1986, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of Ardeshir Babaknia, M.D., M.2026.24, © Estate of Ardeshir Mohassess, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA, by Sarah Newby. Courtesy LACMA Unframed.

Art of the Middle East Department, LACMA Unframed

LACMA has recently received a landmark gift of 90 works by Ardeshir Mohassess, significantly expanding the museum’s modern and contemporary Iranian art collection and positioning LACMA as the leading international repository of the artist’s work. Created between the 1950s and the 1990s, these drawings and watercolors span transformative decades in Iran, observed by Mohassess first from within the country and later from the diaspora. They document the final years of the Pahlavi regime (1925–1979), critique its rushed modernization and expanding bureaucracy, and ultimately bear witness to the authoritarian forces surrounding the 1979 Revolution and the repressive years that followed under the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Colour Me Beautiful

Fierce and political, ‘The Chromophiliacs’ explodes like a paint factory demolition. And it’s glorious.

Moozhan Ahmadzadegan, Ruth Paul’s Drag Race: Iran, 2025, UV screen print. Courtesy of the artist and The Tyee.

by Dorothy Woodend, The Tyee

The Pantone 2026 colour of the year is a whiter-than-white shade called Cloud Dancer. When the colour was revealed at the end of 2025, universal derision popped up across the internet as pundits rolled their eyes and hooted about the tone-deaf — or, maybe more correctly, colour-blind — choice.

The idea that colour is political isn’t new, but in the year 2026 it’s taken on even greater resonance.

The controversy over Cloud Dancer did not come as a surprise to Zoë Chan, curator for the Richmond Art Gallery’s new exhibition The Chromophiliacs.

The exhibition derives its title from David Batchelor’s Chromophobia. Published in 2000, the book addressed the fear of colour in western culture. The manifestations of this are myriad.

The idea that white, grey and beige are synonymous with good taste is everywhere, from Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop empire to the so-called quiet luxury of fashion houses like the Row.

Absence, restraint and minimalism are still regarded as high culture, whereas colour is tarred with associations of gaudiness, cheapness and lower culture, Chan explains.

In his book, Batchelor makes the case that this extinguishment serves a couple of different functions: “In the first, colour is made out to be the property of some ‘foreign’ body — usually the feminine, the oriental, the primitive, the infantile, the vulgar, the queer or the pathological. In the second, colour is relegated to the realm of the superficial, the supplementary, the inessential or the cosmetic.”

Islamic Art, Rewritten, The Modern Islamic Artists Reshaping Contemporary Culture

Maha Malluh, Food for Thought 'Al-Muallaqat', 2014. Courtesy the artist and A&E Magazine.

by Nour Jarmakani, A&E Magazine

Modern Islamic artists are redefining how cultural heritage operates within contemporary art. Rather than preserving tradition as static history, they engage with Islamic visual language as a dynamic system, capable of responding to questions of identity, memory, power, and modern life. Across the Middle East and its global diasporas, these artists draw from calligraphy, geometry, repetition, and abstraction not as symbols of the past, but as tools for shaping new cultural narratives that resonate far beyond regional boundaries.

The foundations of Islamic art, such as geometry, calligraphy, repetition, and abstraction, remain central, yet their meaning has expanded. Where these elements once served primarily spiritual and architectural purposes, today they are tools for exploring identity, memory, and modern life. In studios across Dubai, Beirut, Doha, and Riyadh, artists draw on these forms not as fixed symbols, but as flexible systems capable of expressing both continuity and change.

Calligraphy, in particular, has taken on renewed relevance. Contemporary practitioners often push Arabic script beyond legibility, allowing it to function as form and rhythm rather than text alone. The Tunisian-French artist eL Seed exemplifies this shift, merging classical calligraphy with the scale and immediacy of street art. His monumental works—found across the Arab world and beyond—transform language into a visual experience, challenging perceptions of Arabic culture while preserving its poetic essence.

For Hearts in Exile,

at Summerhall Arts Edinburgh

Taraneh Dana, A Heart in Exile, 2025, stoneware, glaze. Courtesy Summerhall Arts.  

by Omur Sahin Keyif, Artmag

Summerhall Arts is hosting four solo exhibitions in its galleries by artists whose work calls for social, political, environmental, or cultural change, presented under the theme of CATALYST: Art as Activism.

Scottish multidisciplinary artist Eilidh Appletree’s sculptural installation addresses the great contradiction of the global capitalist economy: with its industrial agriculture and aquaculture techniques for maximising profit, often described as ‘efficient’, it’s driving biodiversity loss. What Eilidh emphasises with her artworks is that animal life is interconnected with human life; an end to one means an end to the other.

As you walk into the room, a tall sculpture made of woven steel wire greets you. The resemblance to fishermen’s nets and the fish-like form of the sculpture together reminds us of the reality of ‘bycatch’ in industrial fishing, and Appletree connects these nets with the lives being taken by industrial fishing.

Every year, millions of sea animals die as an unintended capture in industrial fishing methods. These animals, which are thrown dead into the sea, are represented in the exhibition by the striking artwork Mother and Baby. Two fish-like forms, woven from steel wires, remain side by side: the baby was caught as a bycatch in the net – we can see the baby’s flesh. The surface on top of the wire net is completely dry, while the wall surface has been deliberately kept moist, under transparent plastic.

Who Can I Dance With?

From sneaking into underground basements in Tehran [...] to learning to dance with almost no words in Northern California, I had done everything I could.

“Dancing Couple (Tanzpaar)”, by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Courtesy Guernica.

by Arash Dabestani, Guernica

After the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the rise of Islamists under the leadership of the Ayatollah Khomeini, dancing and singing were banned by his decree. People were divided: Khomeini’s supporters believed they could see the Ayatollah’s image on the moon, while others, by contrast, were captivated by Michael Jackson’s invention of the moonwalk.

All the dance clubs were repurposed after the revolution. One former Tehranian nightclub and restaurant-bar, Chattanooga, was well-known and featured in many films. But after the revolution, it became a storage place; its doors and walls all plastered over, it was now filled from floor to ceiling with cables and wires. This was my workplace for years. I would walk through tangled spools to the back of the hall, where I’d sit in a small room behind a computer, doing accounting for the company that sold the wires around me. There was no sign of music, and no sign of dancers. The only smells were of plastic and dust.

Tape players existed with the justification that they were for listening to the Quran or religious prayers. The Hezbollahi—religious vigilantes who acted as moral enforcers—would set up checkpoints on the streets and ask to pop the trunks of vehicles to look for good speakers or sound systems. It was easier than checking inside houses. If someone had a tape player that was clearly high quality—suggesting it could play non-religious music—they would stab its surface with knives.

In order to stay safe, families who didn’t align with the government would hang up thick curtains during their parties, so the insides of their homes couldn’t be seen by the Hezbollahi. They would nail rugs to the walls so the sound wouldn’t escape. One or two people would be stationed outside the garden or house to warn others if any officers showed up. There was always an older sober person at the party keeping watch, ready to pay off the authorities if needed so the gathering could go on unhindered. Others were in charge of hiding alcoholic drinks—possession of which could lead to lashes or imprisonment.

“to arrive is never to arrive”

Skyline’s art gallery explores themes of displacement and reclamation

Guest artists present ‘to arrive is never to arrive,’ an exhibition examining immigration and identity through art

Woven pillar by artist Sanaz Safanasab showing intricate details and weaves in the form of an eye hiding within the cloth. Courtesy The Skyline View.

Aileen Bucog, The Skyline View

The Skyline College Art Gallery held the opening reception for its latest exhibition, “to arrive is never to arrive,” on Feb. 7 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Art by Javier Roberto Carlos, Lorena Molina, and Sanaz Safanasab cohesively explores themes of political rupture, displacement and reclamation in the context of immigration. 

Art history professor Kathy Zarur runs the art gallery, typically curating exhibitions herself; this time, she invited guest curators to put a show together.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity to bring in new people,” Zarur said. “People who know the curators and the artists will come and pay closer attention. By bringing in guest curators, we’re highlighting this gallery even more.” 

The opening reception greeted visitors with opening remarks from Zarur and Off Hours — a curatorial collective that spotlights emerging Bay Area artists — who introduced the featured artists.

Zarur’s gallery practicum class and Off Hours installed and curated the exhibition together.

Katherine Jemima Hamilton, Shaelyn Hanes and Ebti — all working and practicing artists — formed the collective in November 2023, after first meeting at California College of the Arts.

“Shaelyn [Hanes] and I were in the curatorial practice program at CCA, which no longer exists. Ebti was in the MFA [masters of fine arts] program,” Hamilton said. “We’ve always curated in other people’s spaces. That gives us a lot of unique challenges, but also opportunities to work with artists in lots of different types of ways.”

Forbidden Music:

Iranian Musicians Push Back Against the Islamic Republic

A Conversation with TarantisT, Justina, and DJ Ali Pink

Issue #74 - The Protest Issue with Kathleen Hanna and Bartees Strange 

Improv session. Tehran, Iran. 2013. Photograph: Jai Brodie. Courtesy Jai Brodie and The Guardian.

by Lily Moayeri, Under The Radar Magazine

Imagine a society where music is forbidden. A society where listening to music is an offense punishable by imprisonment and lashings. Accessing music is only possible through illegal means. Sharing music is a risk you take with your life. This dystopian-like society is not the stuff of an extreme YA novel, it’s what’s been happening in Iran for the last 47 years, under the dictatorial rule of the Islamic Republic.

It hasn’t always been this way in Iran. An ancient civilization going back to the Persian Empire from 550 B.C., Iran was built on the arts. Persian poets Ferdowsi, Rumi, Hafez, and Khayyam have been translated and read in multiple languages for over 1000 years. Traditional Persian instruments tar (lute), santur (dulcimer), chang (harp), and ney (flute) have been played for centuries.

More recently, prior to the Islamic Republic’s takeover, popular Iranian musicians ruled the airwaves in the country, as did Western artists such as Donnie & Marie. Music stores stocked cassette albums from Europe and the U.S. and did excellent business. Nightclubs, cabarets, and discos featured live entertainment and the hottest tunes, both Western and Iranian. All were packed.

The extreme turnaround after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, which bases its constitution, in large part, on the most fundamentalist interpretation of Sharia law, that is the religious law of Islam as commanded by God, came down particularly hard on music. Initially, all music was banned, but Iranians’ love of music, and the need for it, couldn’t be denied.

Iranian Artists Keep the Spirit of “Woman, Life, Freedom” Alive

Over three years after the suspicious death of Jina Mahsa Amini sparked a nationwide protest movement in Iran, artists continue to fuel creative resistance.

A digital illustration by Forouzan Safari echoes the defiant spirit of Iran’s “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising in September 2022. Courtesy Roshi Rouzbehani and In These Times.

Alessandra Bajec, In These Times 

The 2022 ​“Woman, Life, Freedom” protests erupted in Iran following the shocking death of 22-year-old Jina Mahsa Amini, in police custody. Like many Iranians in the diaspora, illustrator Roshi Rouzbehani was filled with grief, rage and a profound duty to speak out. She felt compelled to create art that echoed what so many were experiencing, and to share the images online to help bring global attention to her people’s struggle.

“Art became both a personal coping mechanism and a form of activism for me,” Rouzbehani tells In These Times. Now based in the UK, she left Iran in 2011 to seek safety from political pressures.

In the year of the women-led uprising, the Iranian regime’s security forces killed hundreds of protesters and threatened the lives of numerous journalists, and detained, tortured and persecuted thousands more. Artists, musicians and cultural workers in Iran — particularly those involved in protest art and human rights activism — continue to face escalating repression, including arbitrary arrests, jail sentences, concert bans and strict censorship.

“Raised fists, flowing scarves and bold female figures,” Rouzbehani says. ​“All these elements reflect the movement’s core spirit: autonomy, resistance and hope.”

‘Octogone’

 Interview. Chalisée Naamani

Protest, fashion history, training equipment, resistance, children’s toys, the search for identity, and the cultural circulation of images. Chalisée Naamani’s ‘Octogone’ is currently on view at Kunsthalle Wien until 6 April 2026; the exhibition moves fluidly between personal and collective histories; clothing, images, and gestures become carriers of ideology, belonging, and power.

Chalisée Naamani, Who claims love? (Detail), 2025, Exhibition view Palais de Tokyo, 2025. Courtesy Ciaccia Levi, Paris/Mailand and Les Nouveaux Riches. © Bildrecht, Wien 2026. Photo: Aurélien Mole.

Interview by Kristina Deska Nikolić (KDN), Les Nouveaux Riches

The exhibition space of the Kunsthalle Wien feels as if it is framing your works. The built–in structure of the changing room, and lockers with mirrors became stations for your work to lean and hang. How you embraced the space and how the idea and the Zurkhaneh (House of Strength) is visible in the exhibition design.

The exhibition ‘Octogone’ first took place in 2025 at Palais de Tokyo, also titled ‘Octogone’. The exhibition traveled to Vienna and is now on view with new works I did specifically for the show here in Austria. When I was invited to do a show in Palais de Tokyo, the space that was given to me had an octagonal shape, which immediately reminded me of my grandfather, who was a wrestler and a boxing fighter.

The art of resistance:

Iranian photographer Ayna Moazzen on identity and building cultural bridges

Copyright Courtesy of Ayna Moazzen and Euronews.

by Saida Rustamova & Tokunbo Salako, Euronews

Iranian contemporary artist Ayna Moazzen, lives between Italy, Azerbaijan and Gulf countries and seeks to turn her transnational experience into a form of cultural dialogue and resistance against the Tehran regime's deadly crackdown on anti-government protests.

Living and working between Italy, Azerbaijan and the Gulf countries, Iranian contemporary artist Ayna Moazzen sees art as both a cultural bridge and a form of resistance amidst the political and social tensions in her country of origin.

Moazzen, who holds a master's degree in art history, translates her lived experience of movement and memory into visual art. Her art bridges visual traditions from late antiquity to contemporary times.

Although her career is transnational, she says her artistic language remains deeply rooted in Iran. “No matter where I am, Iran is always with me. It shapes my instincts, my symbols and my sensitivity – it’s the emotional language I think in.”

A Bug’s Life

New London exhibition uses architecture to explore the experiences of Iran’s American diaspora

Arash Nassiri’s film installation at London’s Chisenhale Gallery uses an abandoned “Persian Palace” to reflect on the lives of Iranians who have settled in LA and elsewhere in the West

Arash Nassiri’s film, A Bug’s Life, sees its insect protagonist experience disorientation and ambiguity as it journeys through a Los Angeles mansion. Courtesy of Arash Nassiri and The Art Newspaper.

by Cyrus Naji, The Art Newspaper

In Arash Nassiri’s new moving-image commission, an insect puppet drags itself across an empty marble floor, cast in eerie blue evening light. The scene is diffused through an enormous frosted-glass cubicle, refracting and distorting the images.

That sense of distortion pervades the Tehran-born, Berlin-based Nassiri’s first institutional solo exhibition, A Bug’s Life, which opened last weekend at London’s Chisenhale Gallery—and comprises a film set within a sculptural installation. The film follows its insect protagonist on a journey of discovery through a cavernous mansion in Los Angeles, its scenes filled with a sense of disorientation and ambiguity that mirrors the experience of those who are separated from their homeland.

The empty mansion is a “Persian Palace”—a unique mutation of Iranian and French Empire architectural styles that took off in Iran in the heady years of Iran’s oil wealth in the 1960s and 1970s. After the Iranian revolution in 1979, Iranians scattered around Europe and North America; Nassiri himself grew up in Switzerland. Some of the wealthier among them recreated the architectural styles of Tehran in Los Angeles, forming what Nassiri calls “a free-form collage of America and Roman and Greek antiquity”.

Reports of Artists Killed by Iranian Regime Draw Outrage and Grief

Sculptor Mehdi Salahshour and filmmaker Javad Ganji are among the members of Iran’s creative community reportedly killed during anti-government protests.

by Isa Farfan, Hyperallergic

As accounts emerge from Iran's deadly crackdown on dissent this month, reports that government forces have shot and killed artists, including sculptor Mehdi Salahshour and filmmaker Javad Ganji, have added to growing international outrage.

Amid an ongoing state-initiated internet blackout in Iran, reporters and human rights groups are scrambling to account for the number of protesters killed and arrested by the Iranian regime since opposition demonstrations began in December.

According to eyewitness reports, government forces have shot indiscriminately at protesters, killing over 2,400 protesters, estimated by the United States-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. The group also reported that forces arrested 18,137 people as part of the crackdown.

Salahshour, a 50-year-old sculptor and father, and Ganji, a 39-year-old television and film director, were among those massacred, according to the Norway-based Iranian Kurdish Hengaw Organization for Human Rights. Ganji's killing was also confirmed by the Iranian Independent Filmmakers Association (IIFMA), as reported by Deadline.

Iranian Art Communities Respond to Political Unrest

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

by Aisha Traub Chan, ArtAsiaPacific

Mass antigovernment demonstrations have erupted across Iran over the past two weeks. According to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), the Iranian authorities’ aggressive clampdown has led to at least 500 deaths and over 10,600 arrests. As the turmoil continues to unfold, Iranian artists are denouncing the Islamic regime’s violence and expressing their support for the protestors.

The rallies, which began in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar on December 28, 2025 over widespread inflation, have grown into the largest wave of civil unrest in the country since 2022, when Mahsa Jina Amini’s death in morality-police custody sparked public outrage. Following the government’s deadly response, officials enacted a nationwide internet blackout on January 8, cutting off domestic communication routes, as well as barricading the population from contact with the rest of the world.

Tehran-based filmmaker Jafar Panahi, whose work is banned in Iran, is among the flood of artists and cultural figures who are using social media to denounce the Iranian government. Panahi’s latest film, It Was Just an Accident (2025)—which explores themes of trauma, political oppression, and the collective struggle for liberation—marks his first creative project since being released from Evin Prison in Tehran three years ago, where he was incarcerated for disseminating anti-state propaganda. He issued a joint statement alongside filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, who fled to Germany in 2024 after state authorities sentenced him to eight years in prison as well as flogging. The post reads: “In recent days, following the presence of millions of Iranians in the streets protesting against the Islamic Republic, the government has once again resorted to its most blatant tools of repression.” Further addressing the internet shutdown, they called on international communities to “immediately find ways to facilitate access to vital information in Iran by enabling communication platforms.”

Driving in the Dark

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 thought about buying a car, for reasons not of convenience but of necessity. My income as a freelance university lecturer in Iran barely pays for my daily commute. I thought I could drive at night for the ride‑hailing service Snapp! to cover my living expenses. I had enough savings to buy a hatchback Saipa Quik – but then its price went up 66 per cent.

I wasn’t able to buy a car but I have started driving for Snapp! anyway. One‑third of my earnings goes to the car’s owner, Snapp! takes a commission and I pay for wear and tear on the car as well as fuel.

One night I picked up a pair of estate agents. ‘Is working with Snapp! profitable?’ one of them asked. ‘Everyone seems to be doing it.’

I said I was just starting.

‘What this government has done to Iran’s economy,’ he replied, ‘no enemy could have accomplished. They frighten the people. So money goes into gold and coins. Then inflation rises and the gold is dumped back into the market. It’s a dirty economic game to empty people’s pockets.’

I asked about the housing market. ‘It’s not about having money,’ he said. ‘It’s about instability. Nobody dares to sell or buy. Prices can shift so fast that you might not even be able to buy back your own home.’ I have heard similar sentiments from shopkeepers, office workers and government employees.

“Tahmina”—a story from Iran

In this short story translated from Persian, an ordinary day swiftly — and brutally — changes course, with lasting implications.

Amir Fallah, “For Those Who Fear Tomorrow, acrylic on canvas, 2022. Courtesy Artist and The Markaz Review.

by Abdollah Nazari, Translated from Persian by Salar Abdoh, The Markaz Review

She lingered at the threshold of the entrance to the building, uneasily shifting the groceries in one hand while holding onto the sleeping child with the other. Another half step inside and she could hear tentative steps behind her. She turned. Her daughter, in school uniform, was gazing at her with a fearful look that Tahmina hadn’t time just then to question.

“Hurry,” she called to the girl. “Come take your little brother off my hands.” She loosened the tight hold she had on her chador so she could hand over the boy.

Masume managed a weak salaam before taking the boy from her mother. “Maman,” she mumbled meekly.

But Tahmina was already hurrying down the hallway. Everything in her body ached today. The groceries seemed to double in weight the closer she got to the apartment. But then something in what she’d noticed in her daughter’s face made her slow down. She hesitated and turned, “Where’s your brother? Where’s Alireza?”

The girl uttered another “Maman,” and then burst into tears. “Alireza didn’t come for me after his school. They say he went to fight the big boys in fifth grade.”

Tahmina set the groceries down. Her back was throbbing. The outside light of December leaking into the building was weak and made the hallway feel more claustrophobic than ever.