Persian Visions: Contemporary Photography from Iran
March 24 - May 22, 2011
Sadegh Tirafkan, Persepolis, installation of two videos and two photographs
Opening Reception
Thursday, March 24, 6:00 - 7:30 p.m.
Movie Event
Thursday, April 14,
7:00 p.m.
Women Without Men
(2009) NR A film by Shirin Neshat in collaboration with Shoja Azari
Persian Visions is an exhibition of 58 works of photography and video installation by 20 of Iran’s most celebrated photographers. It gathers personal perspectives of contemporary Iran filtered through individual sensibilities while simultaneously addressing public concerns.
Iran has long distinguished itself with the spectacular quality and international presence of its visual art and film. With the backdrop of increasing attention given to the art and culture of Iran and the current political crisis in that part of the world, an exhibition with this focus is most timely. In expressing their many different visions of their world, these artists offer a look at both private and public realms. Their perspectives contradict the way many foreign photographers typically capture Iran on film as purely exotic.
Shokoufeh Alidousti offers self-portraits and family photographs exploring both cultural and female identity. Esmail Abbasi draws on Persian literature for his subject matter with contemporary notes on the present circumstances in Iran. Shahriar Tavakoli focuses on his family history through a series of portraits capturing the subtleties and mood of the Iranian family. In Koroush Adim’s Revelation series, the images in the exhibition that feature the veil acknowledge this sign of culture, and yet the “revelation” is anything but simple. Shahrokh Ja’fari’s use of unusual spatial rendering in depicting the veiled figure demands that the viewer look harder and think harder about what can be revealed through the visual.
The images presented in Persian Visions cannot entirely surmount the physical and cultural distance between Iran and the United States; nevertheless, the exhibition builds a visual bridge that allows for differences, even as it leads viewers to new awareness of other ways of being and seeing.
Persian Visions was developed by Hamid Severi for the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Iran and Gary Hallman of the Regis Center for Art, University of Minnesota, and toured by International Arts & Artists, Washington, D.C. This exhibition is supported in part by grants from the ILEX Foundation; the University of Minnesota McKnight Arts and Humanities Endowment; and the Department of Art, the Regis Center for Art, University of Minnesota. The exhibition at Saint Joseph College is made possible in part by the Karen L. Chase ’97 Fund.
International Arts & Artists in Washington, DC, is a non-profit
arts service organization dedicated to increasing cross-cultural understanding
and exposure to the arts internationally, through exhibitions, programs and
services to artists, arts institutions and the public. Visit www.artsandartists.org.
Artist Bios (PDF: 4pp., 88K)
Selected Artists' Statements and Information (PDF: 7pp., 109K)
Curator Information (PDF: 3pp., 40K)
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