Circus Charivari's Freak show, Berlin

Payman Abbasian, Martin Shamounpour and Amirali Ghasemi are off to berlin to take part in Circus Charivari’s Freakshow, to realize some performances, Interactive pieces and sound projects in Berlin. Check some of the images here ….

Emergent Behavior: Project for a Houston Biennial

On View: April 9 – April 25, 2010 by appointment only
the temporary space/1320 Nance Street/Houston, TX 77002/832-867-9207
www.thetemporaryspace.com/manager@thetemporaryspace.com

This exhibition presents a project for an imagined Houston Biennial of contemporary art curated by participants in Raphael Rubinstein’s Virtual Curating course at the University of Houston School of Art. This virtual biennial includes 52 international artists working in a variety of mediums.

The title ”Emergent Behavior” is borrowed from systems theory in which it is used to describe a phenomenon of independent parts working together, and not predictable on the basis of their properties. An emergent behavior can appear when a number of simple entities operate in an environment, forming more complex behaviors as a collective.

Unlike many biennial exhibitions that begin with a predetermined curatorial theme, the artists in this show were selected through an empirical process. Over the course of several months the curators refined a selection that includes established artists who have created significant new bodies of work within the last two years as well as younger recently emerged artists. Much of the work in the exhibition involves the scavenging of social detritus. This can be seen, for instance, in the drawings of Aurel Schmidt, the paintings of Mark Flood, and the videos of Cameron Jamie as well as in the work of seminal figures such as Mike Kelley and Jacques de la Villeglé. The exhibition also focuses groups of younger artists working in Iran and Houston.
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IRAN Vs. Guided by Amirali Ghasemi at PiST///
PiST/// Interdisciplinary Project Space has started its Artist Information project on May 2007 to focus on Istanbul and Turkey’s contemporary art production. On 2010 this project will cross borders to focus on contemporary art practices abroad. The first country of this research series will be Iran, a neighboring country with a 499 km border with Turkey. Its capital Tehran is 66 hours away from Istanbul by train and 3 hours by plane. Iran is one of a few countries that does not request a visa from Turkish passport holders. There is a 1,5 hours time difference in between them. Both countries have a population of over 70 billion. While there is a lack of local support for the contemporary art production in Turkey, it is the opposite in Iran, rather it is difficult to get international support.
Amirali Ghasemi is an independent curator and media artist from Tehran. He is the founder of the independent art space Parkingallery and since 1998 he continues his projects there, in different countries / cities and online. Starting from January 2010, Saturday and for the following 4 weeks, PiST will start a research period with the guidance of Amirali on Iranian contemporary art. This instruction, research and discussion period will start with cliches and prejudices, and by the second week Amirali will return back to Tehran and we will continue screening those works of Iranian artists curated by him. The screenings will continue by Q&A sessions via a skype connection to Parkingallery with Amirali and those artists he will invite. On May 2010 Parkingallery will screen works from Turkey with the guidance of PiST and we will answer those questions forwarded from Tehran to Istanbul for 4 weeks.

* The talks will be in English and there is a limited space for 30 people.

Mohammadreza Mirzaei | solo show
Fotoloft Gallery
From 11 December 2009 untill 31 January 2010

The FotoLoft Gallery of Moscow has the honor to introduce the personal exhibition of the Iranian photographer Mohammadreza Mirzaei, “Humans”. These 18 photographs are like little splinters of the large human’s life. black figures without past, present and future. They are like illustrations to Nietzsche’s idea about desertion of man in the World, desertion and solitude. The whole tragedy is that seeming graphic pictures are in fact photographs, that mean they reflect our life.

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Les Misérables on Stage at Bahman Culture House (Tehran Slaughterhouse) by Shirin Sabahi

Les Misérables on Stage at Bahman Culture House (Tehran Slaughterhouse)

Shirin Sabahi’s exhibition in rum46 evolves from 8-mm films taken by Jan Edman in Iran and Sweden during the ‘60s and the ‘70s. Edman is a retired Swedish engineer who traveled to Iran nearly 15 times between 1966 and 1979 on behalf of a Malmö–based company Agriconsult for the purpose of realizing industrial projects for various Iranian state-owned and private industries. Among the projects Edman was working on in Iran, Sabahi follows the former Tehran slaughterhouse from its formation in a suburban area to its industrialization and further transformation to a culture house in the process of gentrification of the area. This slaughter/culture house is carefully set as the meeting point of multiple narrations that Sabahi provides the audience with in the installation Swede Home 1966/1973/1975/2009. These narrations are based on the diverse contributions of workers of Agriconsult and Tehran slaughterhouse in the research that the artist conducted around this non-lived past that she carries variety of its memories through different modes of transference. Approaching the found footage as both an insider and an outsider, her work deals with notions of belonging and displacement, identity, social memory and colonial modernity.

Shirin Sabahi (b. Tehran) received her BA in photography from Tehran Art University in 2007 and her MFA from Malmö Art Academy in 2009. She is currently an artist-in-residence in rum46.

rum46
Studsgade 46
8000 Århus
11. December – 15. December 2009
Monday to Sunday, 15:00 – 19:00
Opening Thursday 10 December, 17:00 – 21:00

Mohammadreza Mirzaei

Mohammadreza Mirzaei at Osservatorio Gualino

Osservatorio Gualino, a center for contemporary photography in Turin in collaboration with Consorzio Villa Gualino will hold a slide show/conference program on Iranian photographer Mohammadreza Mirzaei.

Mohammadreza Mirzaei (born. 1986), is a photographer working and living in Tehran, whose work has been featured at Dubai’s The Empty Quarter Gallery, Tehran’s Seyhoun Gallery and Mall Galleries in London, among other galleries.

Michael Kenna has acclaimed his photos as a comment or exploration of the nature of human condition, and Mitra Tabrizian has admired the surreal quality and the sense of isolation in his works.

UN IRANIANO A TORINO

Slide Show e conferenza di Mohammadreza Mirzaei

A cura di Fulvio Bortolozzo
Friday November 27, 2009 – 18:00
Osservatorio Gualino
Villa Gualino
viale Settimio Severo 63, 10133 Torino
http://www.osservatoriogualino.net/
Tel. 348.774.7360

Exhibition from November 17th to December 17th 2009 / Opening on November 17th, from 6 to 9 p.m.

VOICE OF VISION
Ten persian visions on contemporary Man.

Photographie © Mehdi Vosoughnia

PHOTOGRAPHY
Kourosh Adim
Mehrva Arvin
Niloufar Banisadr
Naghmeh Ghassemlou
Tooraj Khamenehzadeh
Babak Kazemi
Majid Kourang Beheshti
Taha Moghani
Javid Ramezani
Mehdi Vosoughnia

In collaboration with Mehrva gallery, Teheran.

Photographie © Mehdi Vosoughnia

Galerie Spéos
7 rue Jules Vallès, 75011 Paris
01 40 09 18 58

www.speos.fr

Persianissimo; An Iranian Contemporary Poster Exhibition

An Iranian Contemporary Poster Exhibition

On the Occasion of the 16th Colorado International Invitational Poster Exhibition 2009

Persianissimo; An Iranian Contemporary Poster Exhibition

Curated by Majid Abbasi, 28 posters by 28 Iranian designers
Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art
September 27 – December 22, 2009
Opening Reception, September 30, 7 – 9 p.m.

Majid Abbasi . Reza Abedini . Farzad Adibi . Pouya Ahmadi . Tahamtan Aminian . Homa Delvarai
Maryam Enayati . Vahid Erfanian . Siamak Feilizadeh . Farhad Fozouni . Amirali Ghasemi
Pedram Harby . Zeynab Izadyar . Behrad Javanbakht . Aria Kasaei . Morteza Mahallati . Saed Meshki
Alireza Mostafazadeh . Masoud Nejabati . Kourosh Parsanejad . Peyman Pourhossein . Iman Raad
Mehdi Saeedi . Iman Safai . Bijan Sayfouri . Firouz Shafei . Kambiz Shafei . Parisa Tashakori

201 S College Avenue, Fort Collins, Colorado 80524
Tel (970) 482-2787
www.fcmoca.org

Honor Laureate Exhibition & Lecture of the 16th Colorado International Invitational Poster Exhibition 2009

Persian Variations: An Exhibition of Majid Abbasi’s Book Cover & Poster Designs

Curfman Gallery, Lory Student Center
October 2 – December 11, 2009
Opening Reception, October 1, 2009 – 6-9 p.m.
http://www.curfman.colostate.edu/schedule.aspx

“The Originality & Graphic Design Today”

Griffin Concert Hall, University Center for the Arts
September 30, 5 p.m.
http://events.colostate.edu/event_view.asp?ID=7&EID=27464&GW=1

video still by Hamed Sahihi

Facts and Illusions

An Exhibition of Contemporary Iranian Video Art in London:
Henry Moore Gallery, Royal College of Art, London,
15-17th October 2009
Admission Free
Opening times 10am – 8pm

Magic of Persia is presenting a pioneering and unique exhibition of video work by 14 Iranian artists, in the RCA’s Henry Moore Gallery. Curated by Dr Sami Azar, former director of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, the show is the first time that contemporary Iranian video artists have been shown on such a scale in London. Established names such as Farideh Lashai and Avish Khebrezadeh, will be displayed alongside younger video artists, providing a great opportunity to view the diversity of current Iranian video art.

The 14 Video Artists are:

Mania Akbari
Parastoo Forouhar
Shahab Fotouhi
Rodin Hamidi
Behnam Kamrani
Simin Keramati
Avish Khebrezadeh
Khosro Khosravi
Farideh Lashai
Mandana Moghadam
Malekeh Nayiny
Neda Razavipour
Hamid Sahihi
Rozita Sharafjahan

[...]

The artists’ works will be on sale with 50% of the proceeds being donated to Magic of Persia’s art and education initiatives.