Programmed by Shahpour Pouyan (NYC) and Amirali Ghasemi (TEHRAN) from Parkingallery’s video archive “Video-therapy, Session one : Recovery” is an hour long video program which will be played in loop. The program features works by international artists living in Iran, United States, France, Netherlands, Finland, Germany, Malaysia and India .
INVISIBLE PRESENT at OSU, COLUMBUS
Curator: Amirali Ghasemi
Please join us on Monday, October 29th to watch experimental video works from Iran. Invisible present is an ongoing curatorial project by Parkingallery Projects -Tehran, curated by Amirali Ghasemi. An evolving video program which transforms & manifest itself in various formats from screenings, collaborations, talks and installations wherever it roams. The invisible present tries to be a small introduction of a vibrant new wave in Iranian video art scene, and to highlight the use of various disciplines and different medias, from experimental films to animations and from performance to photography.
Artists included in Invisible Present, Columbus are Saba Alizadeh | Golnaz Esmaili | Hadi Fallahpisheh | Omid Hashemi | Anahita Hekmat | Zeynab Izadyar | Allahyar Najafi | Shady Noyani | Amirali Mohebbinejad | Ali Momeni | Golrokh Nafisi | Tara Najd Ahmadi | Ramin Rahimi | Sona Safaei | Bahar Samadi | Zeinab Shahidi Marnani
The program has been shown in cultural Institutions and different cities in Brazil as a part of the exhibition Iranian Pulse and now is on tour in galleries & experimental spaces in North America. Invisible Present’s screening at Ohio State University is co- sponsored by Department of Art, Middle East Studies Department and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures Department.
Poster designed by Arash Khosronejad
Time: 6:45 pm – 8:15 pm
Location:
Hagerty Hall (Room 180)
Building 037
1775 College Rd
Columbus, OH 43210
THE INVISIBLE PRESENT – curated by Amirali Ghasemi – Parkingallery Projects, Tehran
with a special performance by musical guest, Cookie Tongue
Friday Oct. 5th, 2012 – 8 pm
$5 @ door
Artists’ Television Access
992 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 824-3890
The Invisible Present is an ongoing screening program selected from Parkingallery project’s video archive, The Tehran based video archive initiated since 2004 include emerging artists from Iran and elsewhere. The series is conceptualized and curated by Amirali Ghasemi of Parkingallery in Tehran and it introduces the vibrant new wave video art scene in Iran. The San Francisco edition of the program highlights the use of various disciplines, such as narrative fiction, documentary, experimental, animation, performance and photography. The artists—most of who are younger than 35—work within Iran and across the globe. The Invisible Present sheds light on a generation that can not be plainly defined and is often harshly targeted internationally; a generation which seeks to be present and exercise their significant liberty to experiment, while being invisible to many.
Part of Me: mise en abyme, video program poster designed by Amirali Ghasemi/ parkingallery studio
Part of Me: mise en abyme, a video program in two parts curated by Amirali Ghasemi and Sandra Skurvida for the Iranian Arts Now festival and exhibition, June 23 – July 24, 2012
Cité international des Arts, Paris
Opening reception: Saturday June 23, 6 – 9 PM
Exhibition open 2 – 7 PM daily except Sundays and July 14th
Part of Me is performance, part of me is poetry, and part of me is pain, pain that may not have visible symptoms. My part here is to deliver nothing spectacular, but something delicate enough to be rendered in Turbulence mode we are in. There are things that cannot be said aloud — no manifesto can handle the light weight of the message — the message cannot be broadcast nor encoded to be safe; and sound is the void…. The part curated by Amirali Ghasemi includes works by
Mohammad Abbasi, Erfan Abdi, Makan Ashgvari, Ghazaleh Bahiraie, Amir Bastan, Pouya Ehsaei, Golnaz Esmaili, Bahar Fattahi, Arvin H. Kamal, Tala Madani, Mahan Moalemi, Amirali Mohebbinejad, Photomat, Bita Razavi & Jaakko Karhunen, Sona Safaei, Mohsen Saghafi, Ali Samadpour, Mamali Shafahi, Melika Shafahi, Melodie Zad, Zoha Zokaei, and Niloufar Zolfaghari.
Mise en abyme is a stand-in for the void, a figure opening the subjective fissures of national states, and performatively destabilizing positions of power — the “I”s are focused on the potentialities of arousals and upheavals. The program curated by Sandra Skurvida features works conditioned by the aporias of recent social, political, and ideological insurrections around the world and with reflection on Iran:
But not all parts are those of art.As Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri suggested in their recent Declaration, engaged practice“allows usto turn our attention away from the video screens and break the spell the media hold over us. It supports us to get out from under the yoke of the security regime and become invisible to the regime’s all-seeing eye. It also demystifies the structures of representation that cripple our powers of political action.”
THE INVISIBLE PRESENT
Curated by Amirali Ghasemi/Parkingallery Projects, Tehran
The Invisible Present organized by Sanaz Mazinani and presented by Stephen Bulger Gallery, is the first screening of Iranian video art in Toronto. The series which was conceptualized and curated by Amirali Ghasemi of Parkinggallery in Tehran introduces the vibrant new wave video art scene in Iran. This particular program of two forty minute presentations highlights the use of various disciplines, such as narrative fiction, documentary, experimental, animation, performance and photography. The artists—most of whom are younger than 35—work within Iran and across the globe. The Invisible Present sheds light on a generation that can not be plainly defined and is often harshly targeted internationally; a generation which seeks to be present and exercise their significant liberty to experiment, while being invisible to many.
The program will be followed by a Question & Answer period with Curator, AmirAli Ghasemi and artists, Mani Mazinani, Taimaz Moslemian and Sona Safaei.
Persianissimo at Devi art Foundation, India Poster designed by Majid Abbasi
Persianissimo
An Iranian Contemporary Poster Exhibition
selected by Majid Abbasi
January 25-May 30, 2012
By Majid Abbasi
By Damoon Khanjanzadeh
By Kambiz-Shafei
By Mehran Zamani
by Iman Safai
By Morteza Mahallati
By Pouya Ahmadi
By Vahid Erfanian
By Homa Delvaray
by Tahamtan Aminian
The Elephant in the Darkis accompanied by a contemporary Iranian poster exhibition called Persianissimo. These thirty-two posters are works of different graphic designers and are selected by Majid Abbasi, member of the Iranian Graphic Designers Society and founder of Neshan, an Iranian Graphic Design Magazine. Persianissimo was first displayed at Colorado State University in 2009, during the 16th Colorado International Invitational Poster Exhibition. Ever since, the exhibition has been traveling and has grown in terms of content.
Persianissimo, an exhibition of Iranian graphic designers’ works, originally was held in Colorado State University as a part of the 16th Colorado International Invitational Poster Exhibition (2009). There, 28 posters by 28 Iranian designers, selected by Majid Abbasi, were displayed in Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art. The exhibition is now part of the permanent collection in Colorado State University and it is to be displayed in other universities and galleries such as Fine Arts Faculty of Marmara University in Istanbul, Eastern Mediterranean University in Famagusta, Faculty of Design and Art at Free University in Bolzano, Harbourfront Centre in Toronto, Gallery of Villa Decius in Krakow.
Persianissimo is a group exhibition of 34 designers from the contemporary generation held in different parts of the world. The new generation of the Iranian graphic designers, mostly active after the 1979 revolution and the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), changed the aforementioned graphic design scene in Iran. The audacity and the new ideas of the young graphic designers in using Iranian typography, considering the modern technology, their lyricism as well as searching for new concepts with a new image of the Iran, are a few of their achievements thus far. And now they claim a national graphic design with high standards. Today’s Iranian graphics has become internationally recognized thanks to these designers’ works and their permanent presence in international festivals, biennials and competitions which have won them numerous awards at world-class level.
This exhibition is being updated regularly; more designers are joining in and it is becoming more encompassing as the number of the collection increases.
Persianissimo is a manifestation of Iran’s today poster design. This collection has been exhibited internationally by the cooperation of museums, galleries, art centers, design associations and art and design schools. Presenting this collection will be of great significance in making Iran’s contemporary poster design known internationally.
Persianissimo is a blend of issimo from Italian language which is derived from music and its concept id known all over the world.
Exhibition Website: www.persianissimo.ir
Special thanks: Reza Abedini, Farzad Adibi, Pouya Ahmadi, Tahamtan Aminian, Homa Delvarai, Maryam Enayati, Vahid Erfanian, Siavash Fani, Siamak Feilizadeh, Farhad Fozouni, Amirali Ghasemi, Amirhossein Ghoochibeik, Pedram Harby, Behrouz Hariri, Zeynab Izadyar, Damoon Khanjanzadeh, Ali Khorshidpour, 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 and Kambiz Shafei, Parisa Tashakori, Mehran Zamani.
About The Curator:
Majid Abbasi born in 1965 in Tehran, where he still lives today, Abbasi graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran in 1996 in visual communication. It was in this same year, having already enjoyed numerous freelance design commissions, that Abbasi set up his prestigious studio, Did Graphics Inc., with partner Firouz Shafei. Also a lecturer at the University of Tehran, following Morteza Momayez’ invitation to join the university’s Faculty of Fine Arts 2003-2007, Abbasi has been a member of the board and treasurer of the Iranian Graphic Designers Society (IGDS) in 2003-2006.
A more recent venture has seen the launch of Neshan, the Iranian graphic design magazine for which Abbasi sits on the editorial board, while he is also a founder of The 5th Color, a collective formed by what he describes as “the new generation of Iranian graphic designers”. Abbasi’s work has been published in numerous international magazines and books. In addition to this, since 1999, Abbasi has participated in many national and international exhibitions. His works are presented in museums, collections and galleries around the world and he has also received many national and international awards in recent years.
He is a member of Alliance Graphique International (AGI) since 2009.
Devi Art Foundation
Sirpur House, Plot 39, Sector 44
Gurgaon 122003, Haryana, India
Closest metro station: Huda City Centre
Visiting Hours: 11am to 7pm, Tuesday to Sunday
Closed on Mondays and all public holidays
For more information please write to
info@deviartfoundation.org or call +91 124 488 8111 www.deviartfoundation.org
Curated by Amirali Ghasemi
January 25-May 30, 2012
Reza Aramesh, Action 72, 2009 - Black and White Silver Gelatin Print, 124 x 170 cmGohar Dashti, Slow Decay, 2010 - HD Video, Color / No Sound, 6 min 50 sec
Devi Art Foundation presents The Elephant in the Dark curated by Amirali Ghasemi from 25th January to
30th May 2012, which brings together works of fifty-two contemporary Iranian artists from the Lekha and Anupam Poddar Collection.
“An elephant was put in a dark house for display. Crowds of people were asked to identify the object in the dark place by inspection. Each visitor felt with his palm a different part of the animal’s body, and thusdescribed the animal’s physical reality differently.
The palm of one fell on the trunk. ‘This creature is like a water-spout,’ he said.
The hand of another lighted on the elephant’s ear. To him the beat was evidently like a fan.
Another rubbed against its leg. ‘I found the elephant’s shape is like a pillar,’ he said.
Another laid his hand on its back. ‘Certainly this elephant was like a throne,’ he said.
The sensual eye is just like the palm of the hand. The palm has not the means of covering the whole of the truth.”
The exhibition borrows its title from a poem by Rumi, which was inspired by an ancient story of The Elephant and the Blind. The poet cleverly changes the dramatic state of blindness into darkness which has a cure, while the poem illustrates how complex it is to evaluate an event, situation or an object by seeing it from a particular angle and not as a whole. It underlines the incapability of human beings to understand various realities (physical and metaphysical), without using all senses and various means of understanding.
Taking Rumi’s poetic tale as a point of departure, the exhibition attempts to display both formal and conceptual practices that Iranian artists have adopted over the past decade, both inside and outside the country, to express their concerns. The vast selection of works in the collection provides a unique opportunity to present a comprehensive narrative of the social and artistic developments that are taking shape among the artists.
This diverse and vibrant collection is explored through two parallel streams, which displays the works of internationally known artists and a selection of upcoming young artists. The exhibition is divided into three sections: in “Departure from Form”, the traditional form is re-contextualized and used for contemporary critical expressions. “Reflection of a Complex Society” questions social issues such as gender representation, a recurring trend in contemporary Iranian art. Finally, “The Politicized Scenery” showcases works that touch upon various conflicts ranging from the battle for oil in the Middle East to moments in Iranian political history with a keen eye on the current events in the last three years.
The Elephant in the Dark is an effort to investigate different contours of Iranian polity and society through contemporary modes of artistic enquires.
The Sleepers and The Walkers by Shirin Sabahi - 2011, Four Color Slides, Light Box, Stand Magnifier
The exhibition includes works by Samira Abbassy, Iman Afsarian, Aksbazi, Shirin Aliabadi, Samira Alikhanzadeh, Afruz Amighi, Mojtaba Amini, Nazgol Ansarinia, Kamrooz Aram, Reza Aramesh, Mehraneh Atashi, Shoja Azari, Mahmoud Bakhshi, Gohar Dashti, Alireza Dayani, Ala Ebtekar, Shirin Fakhim, Golnaz Fathi, Parastou Forouhar, Shadi Ghadirian, Amirali Ghasemi, Bita Ghezelayagh, Barbad Golshiri, Amirali Golriz, Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh, Elham Doost Haghighi, Khosrow Hassanzadeh, Ghazaleh Hedayat, Peyman Hooshmandzadeh, Shirazeh Houshiary, Katayoun Karami, Shahram Karimi, Simin Keramati, Abbas Kowsari, Farideh Lashai, Amir Mobed, Masoumeh Mozaffari, Pendar Nabipour, Timo Nasseri, Farah Ossouli, Leila Pazooki, Sara Rahbar, Mohsen Rastani, Shirin Sabahi, Hamed Sahihi, Zeinab Shahidi, Behnoosh Sharifi, Jinoos Taghizadeh, Newsha Tavakolian, Sadegh Tirafkan and Ali Zanjani. The Elephant in the Dark is accompanied by a contemporary Iranian poster exhibition called Persianissimo. These thirty-two posters are works of different graphic designers and are selected by Majid Abbasi, member of the Iranian Graphic Designers Society and founder of Neshan, an Iranian Graphic Design Magazine. Persianissimo was first displayed at Colorado State University in 2009, during the 16th Colorado International Invitational Poster Exhibition. Ever since, the exhibition has been traveling and has grown in terms of content.
Devi Art Foundation
Sirpur House, Plot 39, Sector 44
Gurgaon 122003, Haryana, India
Closest metro station: Huda City Centre
Visiting Hours: 11am to 7pm, Tuesday to Sunday
Closed on Mondays and all public holidays
For more information please write to
info@deviartfoundation.org or call +91 124 488 8111 www.deviartfoundation.org
Opening Reception: Tuesday, December 13, 6-8:30 pm
Thomas Erben Gallery presents Iran via Video Current, a project of OtherIS.
The main question in transnational art production is who represents whom and for whom? This project engages the problem of representation via an ongoing exchange among participants in Iran and elsewhere, as conveyed in the two distinct, yet co-related video programs focused on Iran — one by Tehran-based artist and curator Amirali Ghasemi and another by New York-based curator and scholar Sandra Skurvida. Both curators started their research from their respective locales, yet both programs include artists who live in Iran and elsewhere around the world.
In her program entitled 1979/1357-, Skurvida revisits the sightlines of the most prominent, controversial Western observer of the Iranian Revolution, Michel Foucault. Both his advocacy and the ensuing critique of it reverberate in the appraisals of the recent and current events. The year denoted equally as “1979” and “1357” signifies the difference in time borne out of the societal spaces that are not the same. This negotiation unfolds in the works by Abbas Akhavan, Morehshin Allahyari, Amir Bastan, Bahar Behbahani, Kaya Behkalam & Azin Feizabadi, Barbad Golshiri, Arash Fayez, Mirak Jamal, Farhad Kalantary, Sohrab Kashani, Gelare Khoshgozaran, Amitis Motevalli, Nosrat Nosratian, Anahita Razmi, Jinoos Taghizadeh, Negar Tahsili, and Katayoun Vaziri.
Ghasemi anchors his purview in the present moment and a worldwide network associated with Parkingallery, Tehran, which he founded in 1998. His program, entitled If We Ever Meet Again… (With a Hidden Track), introduces a generation of artists raised after 1979. This generation may be characterized by its responsive attitude — as if it “had no plans,” according to Allahyar Najafi’s video — yet it holds forth a conscious presence in the environment of impositions, sanctions, apprehensions, and expectations. Such a presence asserts an unconditional attachment to the specificity of the origin — apart from the conventions established by the diaspora — yet it extends this original stance towards other contexts, as communication in the personal mode is shared in the featured works by Naghmeh Abbasi, Mehraneh Atashi, Setareh Jabbari, Anahita Hekmat, Payam Mofidi, Shay Mazloom, Amirali Mohebinejad, Allahyar Najafi, Nassrin Nasser, Shadi Noyani, Ramin Rahimi, Shirin Sabahi, Sona Safaie, Bahar Samadi, Hamed Sahihi, and Zeinab Shahidi.
Video still from Measuring the Level of Resistance – Tara Najd Ahmadi – From Iran TVDinner Channel 1
OtherIS/TVDinner
Opening July 30, 3 – 7 PM
Located at IM International
108-59 Roosevelt Avenue, Queens, NY 11368 digest,
Phone: 718 424 6502
E-mail: united@immigrant-movement.us
Seeing Studies Seeing Studies Book Cover designed by Farhad Fozouni
Natascha Sadr Haghighian & Ashkan Sepahvand for the institute for incongruous translation
Taking shape in three chapters:
Spoken workshop sessions: 19-22 January 2011
Printed book release: 19-22 January 2011
Spatial through 13 February 2011
Casco invites you to four days of presentations, discussions and screenings as part of the project ‘seeing studies’. The sessions accompany the release of the publication ‘seeing studies’, edited by Natascha Sadr Haghighian and Ashkan Sepahvand for the institute for incongruous translation and produced by dOCUMENTA (13) with Casco and published by Hatje Cantz. These four days are seen as a communal gathering in which discussions and fields of inquiry explored in the publication will be extended and reflected upon, with interlocutors from ‘seeing studies’ coming together at Casco to present their work and converse with one another and guests (see the program below). Continue reading Seeing Studies, workshop and book release→
Independent art space for new media | Tehran | Iran