Azadeh Balouchi 100x120 Acrylic on Canvas

UTOPIA OPHELIA

An exhibition by Azadeh Balouchi
October 2^nd till October 7^th
Daily visiting hours : 4-8 PM
Opening: Friday, October 2^nd, 2009

Azad Art Gallery, Tehran
No 5 Salmas sq. Golha Sq. Tehran
tel: + 98 21 8800 8676

Siavash Naghshbandi - Kiosk Series 2008

RE ASSEMBLAGE

Curated By Vahid Sharifian
A group photography and painting exhibition by Afshin Chizari, Hadi Fallah-pisheh, Siavash Naghshbandi, Mohammadreza Mirzaei, Ali Zanjani, Hoda Kashiha and Shabahang Tayyari.

“The commonalities of the artists featured here, reference a period and situation from which they have taken influence. they are all 22 or 23 years old, they have all experienced childhood –the period in which their personalities took shape– in the post-war years, they have a newer attitude and ideology compared to my generation, the period of their youth took place during the second half of the 1990’s and their art is inspired from the events and conditions which formed during this time and took shape in the first decade of the 21st century.
These artists experienced the aftermath of war and not war itself. As such their work is more introversive than the frankness and violent absoluteness of the war years and Iran of the 1980’s.”
Vahid Sharifian, from catalog of the exhibition

Assar Art Gallery
16 Barforoushan Alley, Iranshahr St. Karimkhan Zand Str. 15836 Tehran – Iran
Tel: +98 21 88 32 66 89
www.assarartgallery.com

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

An exhibition by Melodi Hosseinzadeh

STORKS WON’T COME BACK AGAIN

An exhibition by Melodi Hosseinzadeh
25-30 Sep 2009
Azad Art Gallery, Tehran
No 5 Salmas sq. Golha Sq. Tehran

Daily visiting hours: 4-8 pm

Melodi-Hosseinzadeh from Safety Matches - Made in IRAN series 2009

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.

As Doctor Prescribed by Amirali Ghasemi and Hamed Sahihi | 2009 |
Vocals: Nazli Bodaghi | Sound recording: Soheil Peyghambari |
Recorded at Kargadan Studio | Music by: Martin Shamounpour

The Dada Disgust: A Medical Profile*
Bavand Behpoor
27 July 2009

‘…[C]ruel with myself… .’
—Antonin Artaud

‘The exhibition is disgusting’, visitors would say. ‘And it is probably the most powerful thing he has ever done,’ they would add. [Of course, he hadn’t done it. It had been done to him, or, in certain cases, he had himself exposed to it.] To make it short: there was no doubt that Amir Ali Ghasemi’s exhibition at Azad Art Gallery was powerfully disgusting.
As a visitor, I personally take no pleasure in being disgusted. Generally, what I expect from artistic encounter is not so much about ‘being moved’, rather about seeing a clever ‘move’ on behalf of the artist. There would have been little sense, and probably even less art, in ‘AmirAli’s Medical Profile’ if it was less clever than moving.
The exhibition, in most part, simply documents the medical history of the artist in an objective manner. This is done with a scientific accuracy endowing the work with a solemn bitterness. No matter how much self-pity is intermingled, the works raging from videos to photographs, to narrative texts and interactive installations all testify to an ‘objective’ and ‘undeniable’ agony experienced through the processes they portray. They range from ‘facial irritations caused by being exposed to sever air pollution and floating dust’ to a picture of a broken left tumb to a Salbutamol spray to ‘nine metal objects in platinum including one main part with nine holes and eight screws installed on the right leg’s bone during 1993-4’ to ‘wounds and irritations on the left art caused by reactions to smoking and consuming hot potato chips, 16 July 2009’ and the like. The presentation of the works is sincere but careful and well thought of. The interactive shelves filled with objects considered irritating or disgusting to the artist, do not qualify for a kind ‘presentation’, they ‘perform’.
As a kind of self-portraiture and at least on the surface, the work is far from being narcissist. The artist happily engages in a brutal destruction of a social image we normally expect to be ‘healthy’, ‘lively’ and ‘coherent’. But fortunately, this is not what the work is all about: it does not try to seek compassion as documentary or journalistic photography might do: there is nothing to be done about what is portrayed. There is nobody to blame but life. All that is gathered in this one person could have happened separately to anyone of us. And it actually has. It is not a call for help: in certain cases, the artist has voluntarily exposed himself to a risk, turning photographs into documents of performances, which, instead of probing the limits of physical tolerance, portray the excessive vulnerability of ‘this’ single body.
While nothing is fictional here, the narrative texts documenting the events are extremely performative.  The artist considers them not only a part of the exhibition, but rather an end to it, ‘I wanted to write them, so I made up this exhibition.’ While attempting in their way of writing to portray the harshness of a situation, they carefully limit themselves to the medical history they narrate. They contend themselves in saying, ‘it happened and it was so bad’ but all the same, they convey there is something very inhumane about this simple and apparently neutral way of saying it. It is as if the artist/author is addressing a coroner at a court session where every bit of human attention is exchanged with bits of evidence.
All this would have not been so meaningful if presented in a different location and to a different audience: it would have not been the same exhibition outside Tehran and Azad Art Gallery, an art gallery famous for its courageous management which dares to host most politically charged contemporary art exhibitions of today’s Iranian art scene. It is in this troubled city with a boiling political atmosphere that the true meaning of the exhibition unfolds: it is not a work of someone like Paul McCarthy, a master of disgust, humiliating the healthy-wealthy modern subject of a consumerist capitalist society, quite the contrary, it is an exposition of sheer vulnerability of a human body that only finds the freedom of criticizing infliction of pain upon bodies when it is presented in a greater generality. Thus, it is not an exhibition only about ‘now’ and ‘here’: it is about thirty years of history that the artist and his generation have experienced which has left them alone with a sort of ‘dada disgust’. It is about a ‘wrong life that cannot be lived correctly’, as Adorno would have had it, which we tried to live.
So there it is, a powerfully disgusting exhibition nurturing on an urge probably located at the intersection of Artaud and Rimbaud: trying to be cruel to one’s self in portraying himself while at the same time implicity stating that ‘I is the Other’.
* ‘Amir Ali’s Medical Profile’ was held at Azad Art Gallery, Tehran, from 24th till 29th July 2009. Further info and images of the work can be found at www.azadartgalery.com and the artist’s personal website:

http://www.amiralighasemi.com/

Exhibition at Aaran Gallery

Risk Of Color
Opening at Aaran Gallery Tehran , Monday , 7th September.

Sculptures by :
Maryam Amini – Hell Berent – Fariba Farghadani – Shantia Zakerameli
And Masoud Mousavizade.
The Dutch – Iranian Ceramic Project ( ekwc ) 2008.

In 2004 China Celebrated the production of the first porcelain piece about a 1000 years ago. In same year The European Ceramic Work Center ( ekwc) started a series of Annual projects that focused on ceramic , and collaborated with other countries such as China , Senegal , Morocco and Brazil.
Then came the turn for Iran , with it’s long standing tradition of ceramic and architecture.
A group of Iranian Artists where chosen by Hella Berent , herself a visual artist and a participants of previous projects at ekwc ,to participate in a 3 months residency program in Netherlands.
The wonderful pieces that were created during this program are now
in display at Aaran Gallery.

AAran Art Gallery. Tehran.
No 12 dey street. North Kheradmand ave.
Tel +9821 88829086- 9

"I hate Mickey Mouse" by Samira Eskandarfar

HOW DID YOU SPEND YOUR SUMMER?

A GROUP  EXHIBITION at Azad Art Gallery
Hamed Sahihi
Masoomeh Bakhtiari
Mohammad Mehdi Tabatabei
Samira Eskandarfar

Opening: 03 September  2009,  4-8 pm
The exhibition will be on till 8th of September.
No 5, Salmas sq, Golha Sq, Tehran, Iran.