Sadegh-Tirafkan-Pres.. - Louise Alexander Gallery

MAY/JUNE 2009
MAY/JUNE 2009
VOLUME 5 ISSUE 3
VOLUME 5 ISSUE 3
The Latin Lebanese
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Gary Nader
Artistic Satire
Nicky Nodjoumi
The Turkish March
Galerist
www.canvasonline.com
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
Anish Kapoor’s Islamic Mirror
the cultural identity of
a fearless artist sadegh tirafkan
photography
Iranian photographer and video artist Sadegh Tirafkan is very much influenced
by where he is from and what he has seen. Yet, it is difficult to imagine the
colossal weight of history that rests on his shoulders. Only upon seeing Tirafkan’s
oeuvre does it become clear that each project is part of an ongoing series of
interpretations, representations and musings on culture and identity.
T E X T
I M A G E S
130
BY
YA S M I N E
C O U R T E S Y
O F
M O H S E N I
T H E
A R T I S T
photography
Previous pages: Secret of Words
#7. 2002. Photography.
100 x 70 cm.
Facing page: Multitude #1.
2008. Photography. 110 x 75 cm.
hematic variations consistently weave in and out of
Artistic Resilience
Sadegh Tirafkan’s work – Iranian culture, contemporary
Tirafkan was born in Iraq in 1965, but his family, like all Iranian
culture, ancient culture and his identity as a man and as
families in Iraq at the time, was expelled by Saddam Hussein
an Iranian. In his photography and videos, Tirafkan draws
in 1971. Several years later, Tirafkan witnessed the ensuing
from the vast several thousand-year-old history of Iran,
bloody war between Iran and Iraq. Few Iranian boys were
from the Zoroastrian religion and the Safavid Dynasty to the
spared from involvement, including the young Tirafkan. From
present, including satellite television and celebrity culture. He
15 to 18, he became a bassiji, a member of the youth militia.
subsequently adds layers of his own personal experience to
During this time, he buried young friends and experienced the
create a rich tapestry of expertly
horrors of war, and Iran’s long war-
crafted aesthetics and concepts.
torn history continues to be present
Tirafkan is a genial man with
salt-and-pepper hair, expressive
hands and a quick smile. His boyish
looks and energetic demeanour
reveal the mature voice of a man
who has witnessed a lot in his 44
years. Aside from his lilting accent,
Aside from his lilting
accent, Tirafkan wears a
ring inscribed with verses
from the Qur'an. “It’s for
protection,” he explains.
in his work. As we sit in LACMA’s
Islamic arts galleries, Tirafkan
brings out his Apple laptop to
show me some recent studies that
include old snapshots of him and
his young friends in the early 1980s
during rifle practice. “Most of them
are now dead and I have lost touch
Tirafkan wears a ring inscribed with
verses from the Qur'an. “It’s for protection,” he explains. He
with the others,” he says calmly. During those three years, he
lives in the centre of Tehran and his studio is just a short walk
and other young militiamen lived side by side in a mosque
away. Tirafkan is happy to be in LA and is looking forward to
where all the boys carried out collective rituals in honour of
seeing the video and photographs from his Persepolis II series
the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Mohammed’s
that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA, see
(PBUH) grandson. The dramatic scenes of religious fervour,
page 76) recently acquired for their permanent collection. He
in which he was a participant, inform his work, most notably
mentions, however, that he is not very keen on Los Angeles
his ongoing series Ashura (a Shi’ite day of mourning for the
because of all the driving, but soon, he will split his time
martyrdom of the Imam Hussein; also a national holiday in Iran
between London and Tehran, both readily accessible for the
and many Muslim countries). Even at that early stage in life,
staunch pedestrian. Tirafkan’s work is in a number of important
he already knew he wanted to pursue an artistic endeavour
museum collections around the world, including the Brooklyn
in some form, but it would not be until the late 1980s that this
Museum in New York, the British Museum and the Museum of
ambition came to fruition.
Contemporary Art in Tehran. Looking back, his road to success
has been a long one.
In 1990, Tirafkan completed his degree in photography
from the University of Tehran. He notes that his professors
131
132
133
134
135
136
photography
“I like the precision and aesthetic of a staged photo
and strive for that without actually staging it.”
emphasised photography as a medium to document the world
mourners, resulting in many hundreds of spontaneous snapshots.
rather than as an artistic tool and, in turn, Tirafkan looked to
Recalling his days in the bassiji, it is not surprising that this ritual
theatre and film to inform his artistic voice. As a result, his work
occupies such a prominent place in his work. It is interesting
frequently combines a staged theatricality (even when he has
to note that he has been shooting this theme for so long
not actually staged the photo) with a documentarian’s eye. “I
that it has transcended developments in technology and the
like the precision and aesthetic of a staged photo and strive
photographer’s approach to his medium. Tirafkan used to shoot
for that without actually staging it,” he says. It should come
with a Hasselblad camera, which captures incredibly rich and
as no surprise then that he cites Cindy Sherman as his main
detailed images, but is rather clumsy and heavy to carry. So,
influence. Not only does she compose theatrical scenes, but
in 2002, he switched to a portable digital format. In the Ashura
she spent years turning the camera on herself. Tirafkan uses
series, the initial snapshots are sometimes the final work of
self-portraiture to fulfill narrative ends, but where Sherman
art and at other times, they serve as a preparatory image that
adopts various disguises in her photos, he is nearly always
the artist then manipulates on a computer. Within the theme of
recognisable. Other influences include Philip Corcia di Lorca
Ashura, Tirafkan has many subcategories, including fashion,
and Vik Muniz. Tirafkan is continually absorbing and learning
generation and gender. The fashion component resulted in the
from all around and, as he says, “I’m always a student.”
Men in Black series. During this day of mourning, Tirafkan shot
groups of men dressed in black from head to toe in various
Creative Spontaneity
stages of the ritual; in preparation, en route and in the throes of
The fact that he is in a perpetual state of learning relates to
action. Men in Black was published in 2005 but is just a fraction
the way he approaches his projects. Tirafkan does not begin a
of the photos taken in the Ashura series. Tirafkan estimates
photographic project as a work in isolation with a determined
that a mere five percent of the series has been seen by the
start and end date. Rather, he is constantly working on
public, something he hopes to change by publishing a book
simultaneous projects which inevitably inform each other.
of all the images.
Some projects can continue on for years, like his Ashura series.
In both Body Signs and Loss of Our Identity, Tirafkan
As the streets fill with mourners during Ashura, crowds of men
approaches culture as a physical stamp that cannot be removed
chant and pound their chests as a sign of mourning. For 15
or altered. In the former, it is expressed through temporary
years, Tirafkan has gone to Tehran’s bazaar to photograph
tattoos that Tirafkan applied to his body before photographing
himself; the idea being that culture cannot be rubbed away
Previous spreads:
or washed off and that it is part of one’s identity. The images
Left: Loss of our Identity #1. 2007. Photography. 95 x 74 cm.
Right: Loss of our Identity #2. 2007. Photography. 95 x 74 cm.
applied to the artist’s body reinforce this concept. Tirafkan
Multitude #4. 2008. Photography. 110 x 75 cm.
learned that applying abstract and figurative images to the
Previous pages: Multitude #2. 2008. Photography. 110 x 75 cm.
body was a tradition practiced among pre-Achaemenid kings.
138
photography
“The first thing war kills is culture. Governments cut
budgets for culture but have the means for the satellites
that beam garbage directly into peoples’ homes.”
He used decorative wood textile design blocks to imprint his
documentary snapshot and transforms it into a work of art by
body with images related to his ancient past. In Body Signs, the
manipulating the hillside into a rich and complex surface of
artist’s face is not visible and is no longer about the individual,
dirt and an earth-toned Safavid carpet. The more reserved and
but rather, the collective, the contemporary investigation of the
contemplative Devotion is a series comprised of a sequence
ancient. In Loss of Our Identity, Tirafkan laments the combined
of photos of men and woman applied to the four walls of the
loss of culture among the Iranian youth in exchange for frivolous
gallery; in the centre is a yellow-and-green glass construction
entertainment. As Tirafkan so aptly states, “The first thing
lit from the inside. The glass centrepiece is a ziggurat-like
war kills is culture. Governments cut budgets for culture but
structure (an ancient temple tower) with a glowing light that
have the means for the satellites that beam garbage directly
refers to Iran’s Zoroastrian past. This sober work is more
into peoples’ homes.” He conveys this concept by layering
understated than his previous projects and also incorporates
contemporary photos of young Iranian men and women with
elements of installation art, which is new for the artist, who
images of Iranian decorative arts. In one photograph, the face
hopes to develop this project and exhibit it elsewhere.
of a young woman in a pale teal headscarf is partially covered
As his body of work elucidates, Tirafkan is very proud of
by Persian miniatures. In another, a Safavid carpet serves as
his identity as an Iranian man. He conveys this pride through
the background to the black-and-white mirror images of a man
meticulous art in which every detail is weighed and measured
seen from the neck down, dressed in a white robe. The artist
in order to create work that is to the best of his ability. He sees
is literally applying Iranian culture to the face of Iranian youth.
this as the ultimate Persian cultural trait. “I’m a perfectionist.
In Multitude, he continues to investigate the role of cultural
Don’t just splash some paint on a canvas and say it is part of
heritage in contemporary life.
Iranian culture. You must have a base of knowledge to be able to
break away from it. If your art is the equivalent of fast food, then
Homage to Iran
go. Persian art reflects a heightened sense of perfectionism.
In November 2008, Assar Gallery in Tehran hosted a solo
Look at Persepolis, Persian miniatures and Safavid art!” This
exhibition for Tirafkan, displaying his two latest photographic
sense of cultural pride does not hinder him from pushing the
series, Multitude and Devotion. “I’m a workaholic!” he exclaims
envelope and creating works that cannot be exhibited in Iran
cheerfully, explaining that it took him just nine months to
due to violent imagery or homoerotic undertones. Tirafkan’s
complete all the photos displayed. Both series deal with
richly layered art is the work of an incredibly complex man who
the leitmotifs of identity and culture. Multitude looks to a
has been to hell and back and whose work is fearless and
person’s public life and the crowded streets of Tehran one
poignant. He exudes a warmth and a dose of Iranian hospitality
must negotiate when leaving one’s home. In a particularly
– even when he is not in his hometown. Perhaps his art is a
stunning photograph, Tirafkan captures a multigenerational
poetic way to exorcise demons of the past and present.
group of men sitting on a hillside. He then takes the initial
For more information visit www.tirafkan.com
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01/09/2010
What Would Sappho Say? - The New…
January 20, 2004
Boldface Names
What Would Sappho Say?
By ANTHONY RAMIREZ
he L Word," the Showtime series that opened to good notices on Sunday, has a great deal of lesbian sex and
nudity, thanks in part to MIA KIRSHNER , one of the stars of the series.
Ms. Kirshner, who looks like a teenage WINONA RYDER , met the press at a luncheon at Blue Fin in
Times Square, along with other stars of the series: JENNIFER BEALS , PAM GRIER , ERIC MABIUS ,
KATHERINE MOENNIG and KARINA LOMBARD .
Ms. Kirshner, who last year played a lesbian who's a contract killer in Fox's political thriller "24," is way
beyond the nudity-is-O.K.-as-long-as-it's-part-of-the-story school.
"I do nudity," said Ms. Kirshner, who in the new series plays a woman trying to decide whether she is a
lesbian. "And I feel very comfortable in it."
In fact, Ms. Kirshner said, to make the relationships more realistic she suggested more nude scenes.
Such as, our Boldface correspondent asked?
"Like scenes where we were just having regular conversations and folding laundry," Ms. Kirshner said.
Oh, my. What did the cast do between all the, um, folding-laundry scenes?
They went off to a corner, Ms. Kirshner said, and knitted.
ERIN DANIELS , who plays a tennis star still in the closet, knitted four scarves in two weeks.
"I was the only one who wasn't knitting," Ms. Kirshner said. "There was one time, like in the middle of the
series, when I looked around and all these women were knitting, and I was like, what's happened to
everybody?"
Perhaps the Queen Knitter was Ms. Lombard, playing a cafe owner with a lesbian clientele who makes a
pass at Ms. Kirshner's character. Ms. Lombard, born in Tahiti and brought up in Spain and Italy, learned
knitting at a Swiss boarding school.
Does Ms. Lombard, arguably the most striking of a strikingly beautiful cast, anticipate a lot more romantic
attention because of the series?
"I've never gotten so much attention from women," said Ms. Lombard, whose accent is somewhere between
INGRID BERGMAN and ISABELLA ROSSELLINI . "Men always I'm used to that. But women. That's
been quite a new, oh, well " And then, tremulous and bright-eyed, Ms. Lombard actually trilled a bit.
Ms. Beals - still best known as the iron welder in an off-one-shoulder sweatshirt and leg warmers in
"Flashdance" - was the best-dressed of the lunch bunch in a slinky long black gown ("I look like a schlub
most of the day").
Will the series be a hit with straight men, Ms. Beals was asked? With a smile she replied, "There are going to
be a lot of 18- to 25-year-old boys TiVo-ing."
Or the Ayatollah Khomeini?
At the Asia Society across town on the Upper East Side, SUSSAN DEYHIM , SADEGH TIRAFKAN ,
LAYLA DIBA and AZAR NAFISI last week discussed art and censorship in post-revolutionary Iran.
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What Would Sappho Say? - The New…
Mr. Tirafkan, a photographer of note, said, "After the revolution, art went into darkness." In film, he said,
depictions of men and women were unrealistic, like requiring a wife in the bedroom to be shown wearing a
headscarf.
Ms. Deyhim, once a ballet dancer in Iran and now a singer in New York, said she bridled at another kind of
censoriousness, the one that tended toward caricature. Ms. Deyhim, who wore her waist-length hair in a thick
hank over her shoulder, is constantly asked by non-Iranians about wearing a veil. "I sometimes say I'm from
Brazil," she said.
Ms. Nafisi, a Nabokov scholar and author of the best-selling "Reading Lolita in Tehran," was expelled from
the University of Tehran for refusing the veil. She noted that the film censor in Iran was almost totally blind,
which did not stop him from being named the censor for television.
"How can someone write in a country," Ms. Nafisi said, "where the censor is his own metaphor?"
Later, a few dozen people lined up so Ms. Nafisi could autograph copies of her book. Write something about
Nabokov in it, a man named Behdad requested.
Ms. Nafisi inscribed a line from "Bend Sinister," one of Nabokov's most overtly political novels. "Curiosity is
insubordination in its purest form."
With Paula Schwartz and Tara Bahrampour.
Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
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July 24, 2009
Art in Review
By T HE NEW Y ORK T IMES
IRAN INSIDE OUT
Chelsea Art Museum
556 West 22nd Street
Through Sept. 5
In a group exhibition with 56 participants of different ages working in all kinds of mediums,
coherence isn’t the first thing to look for, and you don’t find it in “Iran Inside Out.” What you
do find is a high ratio of vigorous work by contemporary Iranian artists who live in their
homeland or elsewhere. You get a sense of the cultural forces that have shaped those lives
and continue to in this 30th-anniversary year of the Iranian revolution.
The Chelsea Art Museum’s managing director, Till Fellrath, observes in the catalog that
work by Iranian émigré artists tends to look more self-consciously “Iranian” than what’s
produced inside the country. And this seems to be true of pieces by the Iranian-Americans
Negar Ahkami, Shiva Ahmadi and Ala Ebtekar that incorporate overt references to Persian
miniatures and “coffeehouse” painting.
Often, though, inside-versus-outside is hard to discern at a glance. Almost all the artists here
have a stake, in some way, in exploring what it means to be Iranian, and sometimes in the
same way, no matter where they are. Golnaz Fathi, who lives in Tehran, walks the line
between calligraphy and abstraction in his paintings; so does Pouran Jinchi, who lives in New
York. The heroic epic called “The Book of Kings” is given an action-hero update by Siamak
Filizadeh of Tehran, but also in film stills by Sadegh Tirafkan, who spends part of his time in
Toronto.
The show is strong in work by and about women: Alireza Dayani’s fantastical historical
drawings; Newsha Tavakolian’s photographic study of a transsexual; Saghar Daeeri’s
paintings of Tehran’s boutique shoppers; Shirin Fakhim’s sculptural salute to the city’s
prostitutes. Abbas Kowsari documents cadet training for chador-clad female police officers in
Tehran. Less interestingly, Shahram Entekhabi draws chadors in black Magic Marker on
images of dating-service models.
It is a mistake to reduce new Iranian art to a checklist of social causes, particularly those
dear to the hearts of many American viewers. And the exhibition’s organizers, Sam Bardaouil
and Mr. Fellrath, have taken care to include work without blunt messages. Ahmad
Morshedloo’s tender paintings of sleepers, Reza Paydari’s portrait of school friends and the
mysterious little films of Shoja Azari are in this category.
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So are contributions by two stars. One is an ingeniously embroidered image, by Farhad
Moshiri, with glitter and pixel-like painting, of a woman sleeping under an electric blanket.
The other is a goofy set of wildlife self-portraits called “Queen of the Jungle (If I Had a
Gun),” by the impudent Vahid Sharifian (born in 1982).
But even when politics are elusive, this is a committedly political affair. Repression both
inside and outside Iran is under scrutiny in a piece by Mitra Tabrizian about the roles of both
the West and Muslim clergy in Iran’s modern history. In photographs by Arash Hanaei,
brutal scenes from the Iran-Iraq war and Abu Ghraib are played out by bound and gagged
dolls.
Several internationally known artists — Parastou Forouhar, Ramin Haerizadeh, Khosrow
Hassanzadeh, Shahram Karimi, Nicky Nodjoumi — who have long understood the uses of
ambiguity in art give an ambitious but uneven event some grounding. In a way the show is a
tribute to them, just as their work honors the spirit of earlier Iranian artists, poets, thinkers
and activists, at home and abroad. Mr. Karimi — born in Shiraz, now in Berlin and New York
— has painted dozens of portraits of these inspirational figures on rice sacks that he has
stitched into a single large sheet. It hangs, canopylike, from the ceiling of a gallery, making
the exhibition look like a temporary encampment and like a shrine. HOLLAND COTTER
THE FANTASTIC TAVERN
The Tbilisi Avant-Garde
Casey Kaplan
525 West 21st Street, Chelsea
Through July 31
This unusual group show is long on history and short on actual art objects, but the
unfamiliarity of its material and its sense of mission create a special intensity. It focuses on
the little-known pocket of the early-20th-century Russian avant-garde that flourished in the
small city of Tbilisi, sometimes called the Paris of the East, between 1910 and the early
1930s.
In Georgia in the southern Caucasus on the way to everywhere, Tbilisi had an out-size
multicultural vitality. Its many cafes — the Fantastic Tavern was the most prominent — and
its age-old poetry tradition spawned proto-Dada performances, readings and theater. Italian
Futurism exerted an early influence, and there was a small but productive film industry.
This exhibition has been organized by Daniel Baumann, a curator at the Kunstmuseum Bern
in Switzerland, working with the Arts Interdisciplinary Research Laboratory, a group of
Georgian art historians and artists. They have compensated brilliantly for the impossibility of
borrowing from Georgian museums at the moment. Long rows of framed color reproductions
take us page by often illustrated page through avant-garde publications: magazines,
manifestoes and poetry collections.
Handsome reproductions of watercolors and drawings presented on a single scroll include a
caricature of Vladimir Mayakovsky, the Russian (Georgian-born) poet, by Irakli Gamrekeli;
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Emma Lalaeva’s stage designs for Lermontov’s poem “The Demon”; and Irina Stenberg’s
“Telescope,” a 1929 watercolor whose Social Realist leanings evoke the work of the German
painter Neo Rauch.
The photographs of Dmitri Ermakov convey Tbilisi’s architectural allure and document some
of its inhabitants: a water seller, a fruit hawker, Muslim carpet merchants and women in
ethnic dress variously identified as Georgian, Armenian and Azeri.
The virtually unknown silent films on view are especially engrossing. The 1930
documentary-fantasy by Mikheil Kalatozishvili (often spelled Mikhail Kalatozov), “Salt for
Svanetia,” looks to the past with sequences of hard-working peasants amid breathtaking
mountains. Konstantine Mikaberidze’s 1929 film “My Grandmother” is antic and modern, a
tale of unemployment and marital deceit, full of antic carryings-on and (faintly) dubbed in
English. In all, it never hurts to know more clearly and extensively what you don’t know.
ROBERTA SMITH
ALICE HUTCHINS
D’Amelio Terras
525 West 22nd Street, Chelsea
Through Aug. 7
This small selection of sculptures by Alice Hutchins is technically an appendage to the
gallery’s summer group show, an above-average mix of new art from Los Angeles.
Fortunately, the organizers — Jedediah Caesar and Shana Lutker, both artists — have given
Ms. Hutchins her own space in the front room. It’s a rare New York appearance for Ms.
Hutchins, a Fluxus-influenced artist born in 1916 who worked in Europe for decades and now
lives in the Bay Area.
Ms. Hutchins trained as a painter, but for the past 40 years she has been making abstract
metal-and-wood constructions with magnetic components. They change shape from show to
show, and can even be reassembled by viewers (by request and with assistance from gallery
staff ).
In “Group I Model K” (1968), tiny washers are clustered like barnacles around three tubular
magnets. “Hex” (1976) is a sort of honeycomb, in which hexagonal forms stand on edge atop
a round ferrite base.
In newer works, most wall-mounted, Ms. Hutchins arranges wires and chains on flat
geometric supports. In “Nice and Easy” she uses a rod and frayed wire as a kind of needle
and thread; in “Silence,” a few inches of chain cling to a dark metal base like a trapped insect.
The interactive element makes the sculptures friendly, even toylike; at the same time, the
knowledge that you’re in the presence of a magnetic field keeps you at arm’s length. KAREN
ROSENBERG
NAKED!
Paul Kasmin Gallery
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293 10th Avenue, near 27th Street,
Chelsea
Through Sept. 19
Although it includes images of men, a more accurate title than “Naked!” for this
entertainingly lubricious show would be “Naked Women of Child-Bearing Age.”
A large part of the show’s appeal is its eclecticism. The 44 works selected by the independent
curator Adrian Dannatt and the gallery’s proprietor, Paul Kasmin, range from a sweetly
comical painting of the river god Alpheus chasing the rather zaftig nymph Arethusa, by
Moyses van Uyttenbroeck, from around 1626, to Walter Robinson’s 2009 painting of a
woman whose soles occupy most of the foreground.
In the front gallery Mel Ramos’s 2007 sculpture of a voluptuous woman emerging from an
open banana peel faces off against a smooth bronze Diana, made in 1880 by the French
academician Alexandre Falguière, as an ethereal, doll-like odalisque neatly painted by Mark
Ryden in 2008 looks on. In the middle gallery one of Philip Pearlstein’s clinically realistic
pictures of a pair of female models from 1965 hangs across the room from John Wesley’s
“Two Women” (2002), a formally refined cartoon picture suggestive of Sapphic love.
The gallery’s back room, where many smaller works hang, is dominated by Cecily Brown’s
large frontal painting of a masturbating man and an egregious assemblage by John Bock
involving toilet paper tubes and pornographic photographs of women.
A smaller exhibition called “Size Matters” in Mr. Kasmin’s satellite space at 511 West 27th
Street shifts the balance. Works by Robert Mapplethorpe, Tom of Finland, Betty Tompkins,
Judith Bernstein and others attend to the definitive element of male anatomy. KEN
JOHNSON
JIRI KOVANDA
Andrew Kreps
525 West 22nd Street, Chelsea
Wallspace
619 West 27th Street, Chelsea
Through Aug. 14
This two-gallery show is the American debut of Jiri Kovanda, a Czech artist who emerged in
1970s Prague. Mr. Kovanda is showing older works at Kreps, and new, mostly site-specific
sculptures at Wallspace. He has been compared to Vito Acconci and Chris Burden, though his
art is nowhere near as narcissistic; in fact, it can be self-effacing to a fault.
The works at Kreps date from the late 1970s through the early 1990s, and include
documentation of Mr. Kovanda’s most significant body of work: actions undertaken in the
streets of Prague. Some were performed for an audience; for others, only for a photographer.
They range from Sisyphean interventions in nature (carrying a handful of water from one
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‘Iran Inside Out,’ ‘The Fantastic Tave…
part of a river to another) to subtle violations of social norms (turning to stare at the person
one step down on an escalator).
In the 1980s Mr. Kovanda replaced actions with slight, vaguely post-Minimal objects. A few
are at Kreps: small wood wall reliefs reminiscent of Richard Tuttle, and drawings and
photocollages on graph paper with no more than one idea per sheet.
The new sculptures at Wallspace are more compelling, though still diffident. The best one is a
white string that runs parallel to the floor at about eye level, defining the perimeter of the
gallery. A bag of pink candies hangs from one end, a hammer from the other.
Mr. Kovanda clearly belongs in a category of endearing Conceptual-Romantics, Bas Jan Ader
(1942-75) among them. He has influenced younger Czech artists like Jan Mancuska, who
shows at Kreps and has interviewed Mr. Kovanda for a recent issue of Frieze. But if this twopart show tries to elevate his legacy outside Europe, it doesn’t quite succeed. KAREN
ROSENBERG
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01/09/2010
Art in Review - New York Times
July 3, 2009
Art in Review
By HOLLAND COTTER
'LOOPED AND LAYERED'
A Selection of Contemporary Art From Tehran
Thomas Erben Gallery
526 West 26th Street, Chelsea
Through next Friday
The timing is right for this exhibition and the several others in the city featuring work by contemporary Iranian
artists. Erben doesn't pretend to supply more than a sampling, but it's a savory and varied one, fairly discreet
in its political commentary and calculated exoticisms, though there's some of each.
Siamak Filizadeh ornaments digital prints of contemporary figures with exquisitely colored figures from
miniature painting. Wrestlers in a video by Sadegh Tirafkan seem, as usual in this artist's work, locked in
some archaic ritual. A sardonic painting from Khosrow Hassanzadeh's ''Guys in the Hood'' series depicts the
artist's friends and family in the style familiar from government murals of Iran-Iraq war martyrs. A woman
wearing a head scarf and smoking a cigarette in Amirali Ghasemi's digital ''Coffee House Series'' has the flesh
of her exposed arms and face -- protectively? censoriously? -- whited out.
No image of the body feels more politically loaded, though, than an amazing photomontage by Ramin
Haerizadeh, who was born in 1975. Part of his ''Men of Allah'' series, the picture is made up of images of a
partly nude, partly silk-swathed, extensively tattooed and bearded male figure that has been kaleidoscopically
fragmented and recombined to form a pair of figures lounging around a cross-dressed harem.
Mr. Haerizadeh's brother, Rokni, three years younger, is an exuberant painter of half-abstract satirical scenes
in a Surrealist mode. Drawings by the 20-something Mohsen Ahmadvand, of men in business suits and
Safavid helmets, suggest roots in political cartooning, while the ink and watercolor drawings of the young Ala
Dehghan, one of only two women in the show (the sculptor Bita Fayyazi is the other), look like dream
versions of everyday life.
The same could be said of two small ink pieces by Farshid Maleki, an influential artist of an older generation
who was Rokni Haerizadeh's teacher. His work has a genuine sweetness, as does Shahab Foutohi's video of
a window-tapping, pay-attention-to-me cat. My favorite, though, is a video projection by Barbad Golshiri of
what appears to be an impressive belted machine powered by a foot-pedaled wheel. In reality the contraption
is made from unrolled toilet paper and does absolutely nothing but look original and intriguing. And that's
enough. I hope to see more of Mr. Golshiri in New York soon. HOLLAND COTTER
Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
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March 5, 2010
Home and Album
By CONSTANCE ROSENBLUM
WHEN Arash Yomtobian, a recently minted college graduate, landed a job with Lehman
Brothers in August 2007, he felt as if he stood on the brink of a rosy future.
Eighteen months earlier, Mr. Yomtobian had received not one but two bachelor’s degrees,
the first in comparative literature (Persian, Hebrew and Arabic) from Columbia, and the
second in Middle East studies from Jewish Theological Seminary. To pay his way through
college, he had been employed full time at more jobs than he could count, among them
teaching Hebrew school, working as a waiter and tutoring professors’ children.
After graduation, Mr. Yomtobian began his career in the corporate and investment banking
analyst program at Citigroup, after which he was hired by Lehman’s investment banking
division for a salary in the high five figures, along with fat bonuses.
The job at Lehman promised a welcome financial cushion. And it promised something more:
a chance to acquire a fitting setting for this chapter of Mr. Yomtobian’s life. His choice of
residence was a spacious (840 square feet) L-shaped studio in a seven-story co-op on East
28th Street near Park Avenue.
On Sept. 4, 2008, Mr. Yomtobian closed on the apartment, for which he paid $490,000. On
Monday, Sept. 15, after a weekend during which fears about Lehman’s future swept the
globe, the firm announced plans to declare bankruptcy.
Barclays Capital promptly bought Lehman’s investment banking division. But there followed
wave after wave of layoffs, each more nerve-racking than the last. While Mr. Yomtobian
kept his job, nearly a year passed before he felt secure enough to begin imprinting his new
apartment with his taste.
“Everything was on hold,” he said. “I always felt uncertainty because I knew that one of the
people laid off could very well have been me. I’d go shopping for furniture, but I was afraid to
buy anything.”
Though he had a bed, a couch and a coffee table, there was no TV and nothing for the dining
area. A bagful of personal items that he had hurriedly collected from the office that fateful
weekend still sits in a corner; Mr. Yomtobian hasn’t yet had the heart to sort through its
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contents.
But now that things have settled down at work, he is proceeding full steam ahead, with décor
that speaks to a richly textured family history.
Mr. Yomtobian, 26, was born in Tehran to Jewish parents, the youngest of four children. In
1987, after years of tumult that began with the revolution and continued with the Iran-Iraq
war, the family finally fled their homeland, eventually settling on Long Island. Yet despite his
largely American upbringing, Mr. Yomtobian has a deep interest in the history of both his
nation and his family, and this interest is on vivid display in his apartment.
The most moving artifacts are the simply framed black-and-white photos of family members
that dominate the main wall in the living room. He discovered many of the pictures in the
apartment of a great-aunt who lived in Paris — “I spent a whole night going through them,”
he said — and like a curator of a small and idiosyncratic house museum, he will happily
conduct a little tour.
“This is my pride and joy, my parents’ wedding,” he said, pointing to a dark-haired couple,
both looking improbably young. The man wears a tuxedo; the woman wears a huge full skirt
and a crown on her head.
“These are my parents again,” he said in front of an image of a couple gazing soulfully into
each other’s eyes. “I wish I could look at someone like that. But it’s kind of difficult to find
that kind of relationship.”
Possibly the oldest photograph shows his grandparents sitting on the edge of a fountain in
their garden in Tehran. On summer afternoons, the grandchildren used to play in the garden,
and the attendant memories have inspired a novel that Mr. Yomtobian is writing in his free
time. The work, titled “Floating in the Fountain of Clementine,” is loosely based on his
father’s childhood.
On the opposite wall hang four photographs by an Iranian artist named Sadegh Tirafkan,
whom Mr. Yomtobian discovered last summer at the “Iran Inside Out” show at the Chelsea
Art Museum. These portraits of young Iranians, part of a series called “The Loss of Our
Identity,” have been overlaid with decorative imagery that evokes their nation’s complex
history. Given his background, Mr. Yomtobian finds them immensely moving.
Behind his desk, his twin diplomas hang side by side.
“They’re there for my parents,” Mr. Yomtobian explained sheepishly. “They had them
framed. It means a lot to them that they’re on the wall.”
Except for the sometimes heartbreaking images of a vanished past, the apartment looks like
many an i-banker’s bachelor pad. The drum kit for an Xbox Rock Band is stationed next to a
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47-inch television set, which is surrounded by a bouquet of remotes. “I know,” Mr.
Yomtobian said. “It’s really terrible there are so many.”
The kitchen is bare bones; Mr. Yomtobian hopes that one day this will not be the case. “I’d
like to find someone to help me renovate,” he said. “And it would be an added plus if we
cooked dinner together, too.”
The theme of being able to share this space with another person is one he returns to again
and again; banker’s hours — typically 12-hour days — don’t leave much time for socializing.
There is, however, a dog in residence, a rescue animal that Mr. Yomtobian named Lehman, a
gift from friends to cheer him up after the bankruptcy. Mr. Yomtobian thought that Lehman
had some cairn terrier in him until a person he met at the nearby Madison Square Park dog
run suggested that he was part Glen of Imaal terrier.
Lehman’s chew toys litter the Persian carpets that add splashes of burgundy to the mostly
black and white décor, and the dog bed sits next to Mr. Yomtobian’s, not that Lehman uses it
much.
In June, Mr. Yomtobian will complete the graduate analyst investment banking program in
Barclays’ global mergers and acquisitions division. As he contemplates his future, he thinks
seriously about going into real estate.
“It’s one area of finance I really love,” he said. “It involves absolute truth, a tangible asset.
You know what you’re getting.”
And he sees a powerful connection between the buying and selling of property and his
family’s roots.
“Real estate is so closely tied to the immigrant mentality,” Mr. Yomtobian said. “It’s the
perfect expression of the idea that you work hard and you try to have something tangible to
show for it.”
E-mail: [email protected]
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Published out of the Dubai Technology and Media Free Zone Authority.
VOLUME 6 ISSUE 5
AED 45 | QR 65 | BD/OR 7 | SR 90 | LBP 32,000 | US$25 | £15.00 | €16
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010
AFSHIN PIRHASHEMI
EXCLUSIVE: HRH Princess
Jawaher Bint Majed Bin
Abdul Aziz Al-Saud
www.canvasonline.com
MAHMOUD BAKHSHI
Nazif Topçuoğlu
Laila shawa
www.canvasonline.com
highlights from
canvas guide
LONDON
LONDON
LONDON
LONDON
2 september–7 october
rossi & rossi gallery
‘the sacred elements: wind’
fereydoun ave
8 september–2 october
lisson gallery
‘i am sad leyla (üzgünüm leyla)’
hussein chalayan
1 october–6 november
leighton house museum
parastou forouhar
In this exhibition, Iranian artist
Fereydoun Ave (Canvas 3.4)
presents new paintings on canvas
and paper that serve as meditations
on the nature of wind. The Sacred
Elements of the title (earth, fire,
wind, water) are often tied in the
West to ancient Greek philosophy
and mythology. Ave, a pioneer of
the Iranian Contemporary art scene,
has in recent years spent much of
his time on an island in Greece
where the wind is a constant
companion. For the artist, the wind
is the least tangible of the elements
and perhaps the one most difficult
to render, even though it is
constantly experienced.
This show introduces a new
installation and film piece by
Turkish-Cypriot designer Hussein
Chalayan, one of Britain’s most
respected designers and recipient
of the Designer of the Year awards
in 1999 and 2000. His pioneering
approach and creativity means
that he frequently transcends the
boundaries between disciplines
and this project is no different,
drawing on art, anthropology,
music and design. Here, the artist
explores the concept of what
constitutes both an artwork and
a garment while combining his
characteristic elements of cultural
acuity and performative panache.
15 september–7 october
selma feriani and
louise alexander gallery
‘human tapestry’
sadegh tirafkan
This exhibition, held in
collaboration with Louise Alexander
Gallery, features the work of Sadegh
Tirafkan (Canvas 5.3), who works
in photography, video installation
and collage. He graduated from
Tehran University with a degree
in photography in 1989 and has
participated in several exhibitions
worldwide. Tirafkan’s work includes
Manhood, which deals with the
perception of masculinity in Persian
culture, while other projects such
as Secret of Words, Iranian Man,
Whispers of the East and The Loss of
Our Identity deal with Iranian history,
identity, socio-political, religious
and gender issues.
Rossi & Rossi Gallery
London, UK
Tel: +44 2077346487
www.rossirossi.com
Lisson Gallery
London, UK
Tel: + 44 2077242739
www.lissongallery.com
Selma Feriani Gallery
London, UK
Tel: +44 2074936090
www.selmaferiani.com
Rose Issa Projects
London, UK
Tel: +44 2076027700
www.roseissa.com
40
As part of The Royal Borough of
Kensington and Chelsea’s Nour
Festival of Arts, this exhibition,
organised by Rose Issa Projects (see
page 104) is Iranian artist Parastou
Forouhar’s first solo show in the UK.
The Tehran-born installation and
multi-media artist’s provocative
and challenging work is a response
to the dramatic social changes
that she has experienced after the
1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran
and her subsequent experience
of displacement upon her arrival
in Europe. Her artworks are also
influenced by the politically
motivated murder of her parents in
Tehran in 1998.
www.canvasonline.com
highlights from
canvas guide
LONDON
LONDON
LONDON
LONDON
7–28 october
jamm art
‘neither here nor there: reflections on
cultural hybridity and the third space’
12–30 october
the vinyl factory gallery
‘prognosis’
ahmed mater
14–17 october
regent’s park
‘frieze art fair’
20 october
sotheby’s
‘modern and contemporary arab and
iranian art’
Inspired by the work of cultural
theorist Homi Bhabha, this
exhibition explores the concept of
hybridity in its relation to cultural
identity. Bhabha considers hybridity
as an in-between space where the
“cutting edge of translation and
negotiation” occurs, which he calls
the Third Space. The exhibition
includes works in a range of artistic
media, from film, photography and
design to installation, sculpture
and painting. Artists include Al
Braithwaite, Lara Baladi (Canvas 3.3),
Mohammed Abdulla, Aya Haidar,
Shezad Dawood, Lale Tara, Bright
Ugochukwu Eke and Sacha Jafri,
among others.
Saudi Arabian artist Ahmed Mater
showcases over 40 works in a
wide range of media including
installation, painting, calligraphy,
video and photography. Mater
creates an imaginative visual
language inspired by his culture,
faith and medical training (he is also
a practicing doctor). He explores
ideas linked to his connection to
people encountered in his daily
life. This show also presents new
works such as Antenna and CCTV.
In conjunction with this exhibition
(his first UK solo show), Mater
is launching a visual arts book
published internationally by BoothClibborn Editions.
Located at London’s Regent’s Park,
Frieze Art Fair showcases works
by emerging and established
international artists including Frank
Haines, Tony Just, Jin Shan and Erika
Vogt, among many more. With a
total of 173 participating galleries
and more than 1000 works on
show, this event – the highlight of
the London autumn art calendar
– helps set the international art
agenda with exhibitors from the
Middle East, South America, Europe
and North America. Participating
galleries this year include SfeirSemler Gallery, The Third Line, White
Cube, Gladstone Gallery and Hauser
& Wirth, to name a few.
As the auction season heats
up, and following the records
achieved for paintings by leading
Egyptian Modern artist Mahmoud
Said (1897–1964) earlier this year,
Sotheby’s London sale of Modern
and Contemporary Arab and Iranian
Art will include four works by the
famed master painter. Much in
demand, these paintings come
from the collection of Doctor ElKayem and are appearing on the
market for the very first time since
their creation, providing a rare
chance to see this Modern master’s
work. The lots comprise the works
Marsamatrouh (Egypt), Venice, Liban
and Untitled (Nude).
JAMM Art
London, UK
Tel: +44 7899795432
www.jamm-art.com
The Vinyl Factory Gallery
London, UK
Tel: +44 2078321331
www.ahmedmater.com
Frieze
London, UK
Tel: +44 2033726111
www.friezeartfair.com
Sotheby’s
London, UK
Tel: +44 2072935000
www.sothebys.com
44
05/09/2010
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Focusing on Iran
Photo by Mitra Tabrizian
Mitra Tabrizian's "Tehran 2006," from 2006.
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By Abigail R. Esm an
Published: February 1, 2010
Iranian photographers working inside and outside the country artfully expose a
society in turmoil.
When Sooreh Hera, an Iranian artist living in the Netherlands, was selected to participate in a group show at
The Hague’s Gemeentemuseum in late 2007, no one could have anticipated the uproar that ensued. Hera’s
contributions included "Adam and Ewald," a series of photographs depicting gay men dressed in black
leather and disguised by masks. Among the shots was a portrait subtitled Mohammed and Ali, after the
prophet and his son-in-law, also an important figure in Islam.
Immediately, Muslim groups in Holland protested, calling for the museum to be shut down, some
threatening violence. Its then director, Wim van Krimpen, pulled the offending photo from the exhibition.
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auctions, galleries, museums, and more.
Two years later, Hera’s work and that of other Iranian artists and photographers — much of it dealing with
potentially controversial subjects such as religion, gender roles and identity issues — arouse a different kind
of passion: International collectors clamor for their pieces, which, accordingly, command ever-greater sums.
As Middle Eastern art becomes a market focus, that from Iran is the most sought after, with young Iranian
photographers bringing the highest prices at auction.
The recognition these artists are receiving comes largely thanks to a confluence of political, economic and
technical developments. The attacks of 9/11 put the international spotlight on the Middle East. The region’s
increasing wealth has drawn the auction houses to Dubai and Doha, where sales have been strong.
International attention to Iran increased dramatically with the Green Revolution during the 2009 presidential
campaign and the subsequent protests against perceived election fraud. Perhaps most important for the
young photographers, the Internet allowed the world to view their pictures of the crackdown on the
demonstrations, which revealed truths their government would not.
Several recent shows reflect the rising Western interest in the country’s culture. "Iran Inside Out," a show of
contemporary Iranian art that ran last summer at New York’s Chelsea Museum of Art and included
photographer Abbas Kowsari and video artist Farideh Lashai, garnered popular attention and critical
acclaim. In November the Musée de quai Branly, in Paris, staged a retrospective of Iranian photography
timed to coincide with the Paris Photo fair, which highlighted Arab and Iranian photographers. And at least 10
photographers will be included in "Tehran/New York," at New York’s Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller (LTMH)
Gallery next month.
This wave of shows has come despite the problems that working with Iranian artists can pose for foreign
dealers, even those collaborating with local partners such as Tehran’s Aaran Gallery, the most prominent in
the country (and a sponsor of the Chelsea Museum exhibition). Sanctions and restrictions make transferring
money to artists in the county nearly impossible. But "we all find loopholes," says Rose Issa, whose London
gallery has exhibited Middle Eastern artists since the 1980s. "The West forbids us to make a transfer [of
funds into Iran], but it’s possible to put money into an account in Istanbul or Dubai. If I as a collector want to
buy something, the artist will usually know a way." Works generally run from $5,000 to $7,000, their relative
affordability reflecting the economic differences between Iran and the West.
Iran’s current prominence in Middle Eastern art in general and in photography in particular is hardly
surprising. When photography was introduced, in the 19th century, Iranians were among the first to embrace
and experiment with the new medium. "There is a commitment with photographers to the nation,
photographing the people of the country, the landscapes, the architecture, the cultural traditions and so on,"
says Catherine David, who curated a special section on Iranian photography for the Paris Photo fair.
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Moreover, Iran has been at the forefront of art making in the region since the 1940s, when the University of
Tehran was founded. At the time, the school’s art faculty was largely composed of Iranians who had studied
at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and promoted a Western modernist aesthetic, a tendency encouraged
by the government of the last shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.
The 1979 revolution changed all that — at least officially. The Islamic regime that replaced the shah favored
social realism and tributes to its founder, the Ayatollah Khomeini. But in their studios, avant-garde artists
continued working quietly. Others living outside the country chose not to return.
Shirin Neshat, the Iranian artist perhaps best known to Western collectors, moved to Los Angeles as a
teenager with her family a few years before the revolution. Since the early 1980s, she has lived in New York
and shows with the Gladstone Gallery, among others. Neshat produces politically charged videos, films and
stills of female subjects whose hands, faces or feet she inscribes with Farsi script. Hugely popular in the
West, her work, which evokes the plight of women in her homeland as well as Persian heritage and history,
are even more coveted in the Middle East, where one of her photographs sold for $265,000 at Christie’s
Dubai branch in April 2008.
The Tehran-based Shadi Ghadirian — who exhibits with Kashya Hildebrand, in Zurich — pursues similar
themes with a more sardonic approach. Among the first Iranian artists to employ photography as an art
medium, according to Maryam Eisler, a London-based collector, author and curator specializing in Iranian
art, Ghadirian produces pointed photos of women draped in flower-patterned chadors, their faces replaced
with objects of domesticity: a rubber glove, a broom. In her sepia-toned 2001 "Qajar" series (prints from
which sell for about $15,000 to $20,000 at auction), women pose in 19th-century Qajar dynasty settings while
holding contemporary emblems: a can of Pepsi, a boom box.
While Neshat and Ghadirian both came to photography via art school, many of their compatriots have
achieved celebrity in the medium by the very different route of photojournalism, notes LTMH gallery’s Leila
Heller, who represents the London-based Mitra Tabrizian, among other Iranian artists. Newsha Tavakolian,
whose work has been included in nearly a dozen international exhibitions, covered the 2009 uprisings in
Tehran for the New York Times. Her series "Mothers of Martyrs," portraits of pious Iranian women proudly
clasping photographs of sons killed during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88, is both a powerful cultural
commentary and a historical record, as is her "The Day I Became a Woman," a set of pictures of the
ceremony in which nine-year-old girls first don their chadors. From that day on, they must pray daily, keep
themselves covered and never shake hands with a man.
Kowsari, another freelance photographer for the Times, who, like Tavakolian, is represented by Issa,
produced the stunning portraits of female police cadets in Tehran in full chador, holding pistols and rifles,
that grabbed the spotlight at the Chelsea Museum show. Heller, who plans to include his work in
"Tehran/New York," compares that series with Kowsari’s pictures of male bodybuilders, their muscles
slicked with oil. "Together," she notes, they represent "a kind of role switch."
Indeed gender and identity are themes in much of the photography coming out of Iran, where women’s rights
are limited and homosexuality is banned but more than 1,000 people a year undergo government-funded
sex-change operations.
Parastou Forouhar, now living in Germany, illuminates the country’s political oppression in her poignant
tributes to her parents, both murdered by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in 1998. In one series, women in black
chadors fling themselves across white swans with which they seem almost to become one. In another, a
woman’s hand, barely distinguishable, grasps at her chador. As much political as they are aesthetic, her
works are studies in form and color, conformity and opposition.
Different questions of identity arise in the 2008 "Miss Hybrid" photos of the Tehran-based Shirin Aliabadi,
who shows with LTMH, Kashya Hildebrand and Thaddeus Ropac, in Paris, and is fast becoming one of the
most popular photographers of her generation. In a critique of the imposition of Western values on Middle
Eastern culture and the eagerness with which Iranian youth buy into them, the images depict Middle Eastern
girls with bleached blond hair beneath loosely tied head scarves, talking on cell phones or suggestively
licking lollipops, with Band-Aids plastered across their recently Westernized noses. Prints from the series
have brought as much as $55,000 at Christie’s Dubai.
Sadegh Tirafkan, also from Tehran, pursues the search for identity by melding modern images with those of
Old Persia. In his series "The Loss of Our Identity" — a print from which brought £20,000 ($33,000) at
Sotheby’s London in October 2008 — he digitally superimposes massive photographs of young Iranians
with sultanate miniatures that partly obscure the subjects’ faces in a commentary not only on the loss of
ancient greatness but also on the political oppression that imposes the veil on women. Arman Stepanian,
again in Tehran, also looks back, snapping pictures of aging wooden doorways on which he has hung Qajar
dynasty photographs like icons. The resulting images combine past and present, evoking history and
nostalgia.
Not surprisingly, the sense of loss conveyed by Stepanian and Tirafkan is also reflected in the works of many
expatriate artists. Tabrizian, who has lived in London since 1977, creates montages that speak to alienation
and isolation, drawing on her experience both as an Iranian abroad and as an artist unimpressed by the
inner workings of the art world. In "Surveillance," from the 1980s, figures of authority wander across a
podium, oblivious of the masses clamoring below, while the artist’s more recent "Border" series portrays
simple working-class lives: a woman alone in a room; a man walking on an empty road to nowhere. Lately,
in a departure from her earlier, political series, she’s begun addressing the Western art establishment with
photos of men in business suits standing in an empty art gallery, staring at nothing. Such a print sold at
Sotheby’s London last October for £18,750 ($30,600).
One thing all these photographers have in common is a defiance of the Iranian government’s efforts to dam
the wellspring of creativity within its borders, of limitations imposed anywhere upon their art or their
freedoms. "No matter how much censorship they put down, artworks are coming out. You cannot stop it,"
says Rose Issa. Sooreh Hera agrees. "Artists must dare to say what they think," she says. "It wasn’t my idea
to be provocative, but if you make art, you have to do what you feel."
"Focusing on Iran" originally appeared in the Feb ruary 2010 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of
articles from this issue availab le on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's Feb ruary 2010 Tab le of Contents.
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