Beyond Borders
January 25, 2012
ARTnews
Daniel Grant
Leila Heller, whose Manhattan gallery exhibits the work of a number of expatriate Iranian artists, said that Iranian artist Shoja Azari’s videos have doubled in price, from $12,000/20,000 to $22,000/40,000, within the past three years. “It’s not just collectors in Iran. There are buyers all over the world,” says Heller.
She noted that the prices of several other artists she represents—including Iran-born artists Shiva Ahmadi and Reza Derakshani, as well as Turkish artist Kezban Arca Batibeki, who creates acrylic and embroidered images on canvas—have all jumped considerably within the past five years. For instance, Derakshani’s work was priced $5,000/35,000, “when I started working with him” five years ago, and now his work is priced $25,000/150,000. Last year, a Christie’s sale in Dubai featured an auction record of $146,500, compared with an estimate of $80,000/120,000, for his Prelude in Pink, 2010–11, an oil and enamel on canvas.
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The Mask and The Mirror
December 16, 2011
The New York Times
Karen Rosenberg
“I had no theoretical or academic premise in mind,” Ms. Neshat says in a catalog statement. “I simply intended to juxtapose a group of artists from various cultural backgrounds, generations and professional careers, who have made important contributions in the genre of self-portrait art.”
She rightfully includes herself in that group, alongside Matthew Barney, Marina Abramovic and Cindy Sherman, with the photograph “Rebellious Silence.” It shows Ms. Neshat wearing a chador, her striking features bisected by a rifle barrel and overlaid with Farsi poetry.
[Neshat] draws a couple of intriguing parallels: for instance, between Robert Mapplethorpe and the Armenian-Egyptian studio photographer Van Leo (both playing sensitive tough guys), or between the Italian Paolo Canevari (brandishing a model of the Colosseum) and the Egyptian Youssef Nafil (gazing at the Pyramids).
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Gallery Gaze
November 29, 2011
by Muhammad Yusuf
The Gulf Today
The third edition of Abu Dhabi Art (Nov. 16 – 19), the art fair that's the national capital's special contribution to promoting and showcasing regional culture, was blessed with the presence of over fifty galleries, from all parts of the world [. . .] Leila Heller Gallery from New York, USA, established and run by Leila Heller herself, presented a group exhibition of contemporary and modern Middle Eastern and Turkish artists.
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The Mask and The Mirror
November 18, 2011
SPREAD art culture
A show of self-portraits is on exhibit at the Leila Heller Gallery. Neshat began posing for her own camera in 1993 and this led to her series of photographs Women of Allah. Rather than a projection of her own persona, she styled herself after warrior women, drawing on the role Muslim women played in the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution. Neshat says that her exploration into self-depiction was inspired by Frida Kahlo. "As a young art student in the mid 1980s, I remember developing an obsession with the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo and her self-portraits. I was astonished by how her powerful paintings pulled the viewer in to her private world . . ."
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The Art of Emergence
November 9, 2011
by Polly Sweet
Harpers Bazaar Arabia
Kezban Batibeki: 2011 was a very good year for Turkish contemporary art, particularly so for Kezban Arca Batibeki (b. 1956) whose 'Duel I+II' fetched a record breaking amount at Christie's 'Modern and Contemporary Arab, Iranian and Turkish Art' auction back in April.
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Shirin Neshat: The Mask and The Mirror
November 8, 2011
by Natasha Phillips
Planet Magazine
Iranian artist Shirin Neshat’s latest curated show, The Mask and The Mirror, is a thoughtful and timely collection of self- portraits from a provocative and diverse group of contemporary artists. Featuring works by Marina Abramović, Matthew Barney, Paolo Canevari, Feridoun Ghaffari, Ramin Haerizadeh, Lyle Ashton Harris, Y.Z. Kami, Shahram Karimi, Robert Mapplethorpe, Youssef Nabil, Nicky Nodjoumi, Bahar Sabzevari, Cindy Sherman and Shahzia Sikander, the self-portraits provide an intimate, emotional insight as well as a social documentary reflecting cultural, political and religious issues.
Robert Mapplethorpe, Self portrait, 1983, ©Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Used by permission, Courtesy of Sean Kelly Gallery, New York
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Gee, I'm a Tree
November 3, 2011
Letmypeopleshow.com
Robin Cembalest
It’s fun to go to the opening of a self-portrait show and compare the artists to the way they use their own images in their work. That was the scene at Leila Heller Gallery in Chelsea this week, where Iké Udé, Shahzia Sikander, Lyle Ashton Harris, Nicky Nodjoumi, Youssef Nabil, and others came to celebrate the inauguration of “The Mask and the Mirror.” The show is the first curatorial effort of artist Shirin Neshat, who recounts in the catalogue how, as an art student in the ’80s, she became obsessed with Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits—how they “pulled the viewer into her private world to witness the beauty and the horror she experienced in her personal life.” While the work Neshat went on to make is less autobiographical than Kahlo’s, the Iranian-born artist has often incorporated her own portrait into fierce images, particularly of the characters who are the warrior Muslim women of Iran’s 1979 revolution.
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In The Frame
October 6, 2011
The Art Newspaper
Firooz Zahedi: Elizabeth Taylor in Iran
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Clad in Swimsuits, Performers Stroll Art Platform’s Aisles
October 2, 2011
New York Observer: Gallerist NY
by Andrew Russeth
By midday today it seemed that Art Platform had successfully assembled all the trappings of a contemporary art fair. We had seen neon works and noted a champagne sponsor, enjoyed a VIP lounge and fielded rumors about which exhibitors were given free or discounted booths. Things were going great.
But then we realized that we had yet to see a performance work roaming the aisles, a prerequisite these days. Only moments after that thought, we saw them: two women in white one-piece bathing suits who were holding signs that listed their dress sizes (12 and 4). They were walking straight toward Gallerist.
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Rachel Hovnanian’s 'American Beauty' Show Opens in Madrid
September 29, 2011
WWD
by Barbara Barker
MADRID — Barbie dolls took a bashing at Rachel Lee Hovnanian’s Madrid opening Tuesday night. “I wasn’t allowed to play with them,” said the New York-based artist. Her mother, Peg Lee, added, “Her father and I thought the dolls with those tiny little waists sent the wrong message.”
Hovnanian’s latest work — “American Beauty — Too Good to Be True” — is on display at the Aina Nowack/AAC Gallery here through Oct. 14 after opening in New York. The series is a poignant, often humorous depiction of physical attributes featuring 15 black-and-white photographs, a wall sculpture stacked with jars of beauty cream and an installation of a bassinet with only a mirror on the pillow. “This is where it all started. Everyone always says, ‘Oh, what a beautiful baby,’” Hovnanian explained.
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Liz Fever Hits the Art World
September 16, 2011
ArtNet
by R. Corbett
It appears that New Yorkers are still mourning the loss of Elizabeth Taylor, who died this past March. No less than two new Chelsea exhibitions and a major auction are all paying tribute to the late actress this season.
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The Other Movers & Shakers
Lauren Pollock & Anahita Von Plotho Gallery Directors: Leila Heller Gallery
September 2, 2011
Growing up, Lauren Pollock loved learning about history and other cultures. A trip to Europe her teenage years ignited her love for art, as well as inspired her to pursue a BA in Art History from Boston College. Straight after graduating and certain of her desire to work in the arts, she enrolled for an MA in Modern and Contemporary Art History at Hunter College in New York. While obtaining her degree, Pollock met Leila Heller, founder of Leila Heller Gallery, who offered her the position of gallery assistant in 2008. She is now Gallery Director.
Anahita von Plotho grew up in a family of avid art collectors. Raised in Munich, Germany but of Iranian origin, von Plotho received a BA in Communication from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2003, after which she returned to Germany and worked in marketing at a communications firm. Keen on the arts, she went on to obtain an MA at Christie's Education in New York in 2009, where she wrote her thesis on Iranian artist YZ Kami (Canvas 5.3) After lengthy correspondence with Leila Heller, who had given Kami his first show in New York in the 1980s, von Plotho was hired as a Gallery Director in 2009.
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Julia Mandle and Gayle Wells Mandle
September 1, 2011
ArtNews
By Valerie Gladstone
In this intriguing show of paintings, sculpture, photography, and works on paper, titled "GAME," American artists Julia Mandle, living in Holland, and her daughter, Gayle Wells Mandle, in Qatar, looked at contemporary political struggles in the Middle East with jaundiced eyes.
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Istanbul Joins the International Art Fair Beat
July 22, 2011
Art in America
By Brian Boucher
If you're headed to the 12th Istanbul Biennial in September, clear some space in your calendar. A new Turkish art fair, Art Beat Istanbul, will premiere Sept. 14–18, timed this year to coincide with the Biennial. While there is already the annual Contemporary Istanbul fair, which is devoted to Turkish participants and will have its sixth edition in November, Art Beat is the first fair in the city to welcome international dealers.
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"Dis[Locating] Culture" Brings New Ideas, Style to Islamic Art in America
July 1, 2011
The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
By Elaine Pasquini
Believing in the need to address preconceived differences between Islamic and Western cultures, Islamic art scholar Reem Alalusi and Pittsburgh gallery owner Michael Berger co-curated "Dis [Locating] Culture: Contemporary Islamic Art in America," a fascinating exhibition that challenges the stereotypes of Islam and seeks to develop cross-cultural understanding through the medium of art.
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!["Dis[Locating] Culture" Brings New Ideas, Style to Islamic Art in America](http://i1.exhibit-e.com/gtemplate/OilBarrelDETAIL0.jpg)
Eden Revisited: Shahram Karimi and the Re-Enchantment of Art
June 13, 2011
Huffington Post
By Lisa Paul Sreitfeld
Shahram Karimi is the consummate artist, master of many mediums: painting, drawing, collage, set design, video and poetry. This Iranian born prophet carries battered suitcases blazoned with his itinerant refugee status committed into the very language of his painting.
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Sharam Karimi The Rose of Remembrance
June 1, 2011
The Brooklyn Rail
by Phong Bui
LEILA TAGHINIA – MILANI HELLER GALLERY | MAY 25 – JUNE 18, 2011
“And even if you eat my poems while they’re still fresh,
You still have to bring forward many images yourself.
Actually, friend, what you’re eating is your own imagination.
These are not just a bunch of old proverbs.”
—Rumi
I’ve followed Shahram Karimi’s work for the last few years, especially the two recent large group exhibits, Iran Inside Out at Chelsea Art Museum in 2009 and Tehran—New York at LTMH Gallery in 2010. The first thing one notices about this exhibit is the pervasive sentiment of haunted memory and the ways in which images compel us to bring forth our own poetic imagination in order to fully grasp his pure poetry translated into visual form.
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Shoja Azari's Bonfire of the Blasphemies
Art Info
April 18, 2011
Art Info
By Nicolai Hartvig
Shoja Azari's latest works, currently showing for the first time in France at Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont, address issues of Middle Eastern violence, martyrdom and religious beliefs in a way that may feel like the artist is beating a dead horse. Yet the show nevertheless hints at a deeper failure to address why the horse exists at all.
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Pouran Jinchi Entropy
March 1, 2011
Bidoun Magazine
Natasha Roje
The painter Pouran Jinchi’s recent show at Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller Gallery, ‘Entropy,’ deftly explored the delicate relationship between art and text. With ‘Entropy’ Jinchi remains true to her distinctive approach to painting, a semiotic reversal in which she turns text into image.
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Blips for VIPs: Technical Woes Plague Online Fair
January 24, 2011
Art in America
by Michael Slenske
Highlights included the innovation in the work shown by certain South American and Asian galleries, including Seoul's Gallery Hyundai, Tokyo's Ota Fine Arts, and Sao Paulo's Galeria Raquel Arnaud. Points also go to New York's LTMH Gallery, Reykjavik's I8, and Rio's A Gentil Carioca. The latter actually let visitors sponsor planned public art projects. London's Limoncello Gallery added a humorous layer to the white wall aesthetic by showing Polaroids of their works for sale.
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Collectors and Artists Views
Negar Ahkami
January 22, 2011
The Art Newspaper Digital
Gimmick or the end to the art fair as we know it? We find out from collectors and artists what they really think of the virtual VIP Art Fair at its launch party in New York. With interviews from collectors Greg Feldman, Amy Phelan, Paul Frankel and artists Negar Ahkami and Adam Shecter. Brought to you in association with the VIP Art Fair.
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Pulp Fiction: The Sequel
January 20, 2011
NY1
by Stephanie Simon
This weekend at Leila Hellers' LTMH gallery on 78th Street and Madison Avenue see the new exhibit "Pulp Fiction: The Sequel." With works by Kezban Arca Batibeki. This is the Turkish artist's first solo show in the U.S. and it explores issues of gender, culture and more. The gallery is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
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The Art of War: Why Today's Iranian Art Is One Of Your Best Investments Now
January 10, 2011
Forbes
by Abigail R. Esman
“Until the crimson blossoms on the shirt.” It is a line from a poem by Ahmad Shamiou, an Iranian poet whose work is especially popular among Iranian dissidents these days.It is also the title of two paintings by Iranian artist Rokni Haerizadeh, who currently lives in exile with his photographer brother Ramin in Dubai: although their works are being swept up by major collectors throughout the West – including art trendsetters Charles Saatchi and Don and Mera Rubell – friends in Iran have cautioned the Haerizadehs that they risk execution should they return to their native Tehran.
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A Female, but Not Mainly Feminine, Eye
January 7, 2011
The New York Times
by Sylviane Gold
A more contemporary standout is Negar Ahkami’s 2010 “Backsplash,” vibrant with swirls of glitter-crusted blue and green. The painting seems at first a celebration of the energy inherent in color and pattern. But a closer look reveals that those exuberant designs are Islamic in style. They engulf a miniature rendering of the New York skyline and include a stream of ghastly body parts and faces. Ms. Ahkami has fused her Iranian heritage and her American identity in a searing combination of images.
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Istanbul Goes International
December 14, 2010
Art & Antiques
by Abigail R. Esman
Situated at the meeting point between Europe and Asia, the city of Istanbul has long been seen as a bridge between East and West. Inheriting centuries-old legacies from the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, its culture is as exciting, avant-garde and cosmopolitan as that of any major European city. And one of the most exciting aspects of that culture is a burst of creativity in visual art. With good reason, art cognoscenti in Istanbul anticipate that their city—which was named the EU’s European Capital of Culture for 2010—will soon be among the leading centers of the international art world.
That notion would have been unthinkable just a decade ago, when there was a mere handful of galleries and not one museum for modern or contemporary art. Today, Istanbul has more than 300 contemporary art galleries and six museums for modern and contemporary art—with new ones in various stages of planning.
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A Frission of the New
December 7, 2010
The New York Observer
By Anthony Haden-Guest
There was also strong work in Zoom by Shoja Azari, the Iranian artist, who is married to Shirin Neshat. One was a video, THERE ARE NO NON BELIEVERS IN HELL, which included Renaissance masterworks, the Goya-esque conehead image from Abu Ghraib, black-turbaned mullahs and Christian saints; a taped sermon from a fundamentalist U.S. preacher that Azari unearthed on YouTube belts out at length. "Listen carefully! There are no unbelievers in hell. There are no unbelievers in hell!" Yes, the point seemed to be, we have our jihadist-equivalents, too. There was none of Mr. Moses' happy-happiness here.
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Artists from all faiths, including Muslims, challenge religious assumptions
December 3, 2010
The Washington Post
by Blake Gopnik
The writer Salman Rushdie is the iconic example of a figure whose works have been reviled as blasphemy by some imams, while the works are supported, even celebrated, by Western culturati. The world of visual art is starting to see similar examples.
Artists in Iran are eager to probe religious icons and symbols, says Shoja Azari, a prominent Iranian artist and filmmaker who lives in New York. "It's definitely going on strongly in Iran - and in Turkey, it's also being done."
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Canvas Daily
Abu Dhabi Art Edition
November 5, 2010
FIVE PREREQUISTS FOR SURVIVAL IN THE ART WORLD:
Be kind to everyone. Don't listen to gossip. Follow your own path. Don't bow to the market. Care for your artists as if they were your children.
MY BIGGEST ART WORLD GOOF:
As an intern at an auction house, my superior house asked me to unwrap a Christo, which was brought in for appraisal and I threw the plastic away. I then spent hours searching in the garbage bin to retrieve the wrapping once he realised the mistake.
I WAS LOST FOR WORDS:
Andy Warhol asked me to throw a party with him at Area.
ONE OF THE ART WORLD'S GREATEST UNSUNG HEROES IS:
All the assistants whole helped create some of the most amazing artworks for famous artists.
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Shoja Azari
October 7, 2010
by Eleanor Heartney
Art in America
New York Since Warhol, art’s flirtations with popular imagery have often been associated with entertainment and consumerism. If political at all, they take the form of commodity critiques that accept a global capitalist system as a given. So it is bracing to encounter the work of Iranian-born Shoja Azari, which is deeply engaged with a distinct vernacular culture. Azari, a respected filmmaker and frequent collaborator with his partner, Shirin Neshat, draws on strains of popular imagery that in Iran signify political resistance to both secular and religious despotism. For this show, he blended “painting” and video in works that express solidarity with last year’s post-election uprising in Iran. These hybrids derive from two traditional sources: mass-produced posters portraying famous Shiite martyrs, and a famous Iranian “coffee house painting.”
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The Politcs of Art: The People Will Not Be Silenced
September 4, 2010
The Huffington Post
by Kisa Lala
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ArtOnAir
Interview with Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller by Marisa Mazria-Katz
August 10, 2010
Host Marisa Mazria-Katz speaks with Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller, founder of New York's LTMH Gallery, one of the only galleries in the US that has devoted nearly its entire repertoire to Middle Eastern artists. In 2009, Heller helped organized Iran Inside Out, one of the biggest exhibits of Iranian art in the US, at New York's Chelsea Art Museum. This year alone she has mounted five exhibits, each of which has focused on the work of artists from Iran, Turkey and Iraq, at home or in exile. Heller discusses her transition from life in her native Iran to working in the New York art world after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and speaks to art's vibrant and integral part of life in Iran (23 minutes).
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Putting New Faces on Islamic History
May 18, 2010
The New York Times
by Carol Kino
ONE balmy evening this month, a glamorous crowd was packed into the tiny Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller Gallery on the Upper East Side for the opening of “Icons,” a show of video installations by the Iranian-born filmmaker Shoja Azari that runs through Friday.
It was his first solo show in New York, though Mr. Azari, 52, is no stranger to the high-end art world. The professional and romantic partner of the art star Shirin Neshat, he has been her primary collaborator on films and videos, including the feature “Women Without Men,” which opened in Manhattan on May 14. And Mr. Azari’s own multimedia installations have been increasingly showcased in galleries and museums around the world.
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Art: Icons, Shoja Azari
May 13, 2010
PBS.org: Tehran Bureau
by Dan Geist
To find the Shah, start dead center. Shift the gaze a foot and a half to the left, now eight inches down. There he is, a small framed black-and-white photo, licked by neverending flames. This is the still point of Coffee House Painting, centerpiece of Icons, an exhibition of the work of Shoja Azari on view at New York's Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller Gallery through May 27.
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Bonhams Votes for Iranian Art
April 13, 2010
The Wall Street Journal
by Kelly Crow
During the recession, New York’s major auction houses didn’t include much work by Middle Eastern artists in their major sales of modern and contemporary art. One reason: prices for new stars like Farhad Moshiri had soared above $1 million during the boom but fell sharply as collectors pulled back. Now, Bonhams is changing its tack. On May 11, the auctioneer plans to offer 20 pieces by modern and contemporary Iranian artists — whose works are priced to sell between $2,000 and $80,000 apiece — in its modern, contemporary and Latin American art sale to be conducted in New York and Los Angeles. Charlie Moore, a cataloguer, says the move is a bid to appeal to the Iranian diaspora in New York and Los Angeles. Moshiri is represented in the sale with his gold-leaf calligraphy work from 2005, “S19R,” priced to sell for at between $60,000 and $80,000. (Moore says similar works from the artist’s series were selling for up to $120,000 during the market’s peak.)
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Iran's New Treasures
December 22, 2009
Barron's Magazine
By Daniel Grant
Alongside the nuclear controversy, an art scene flourishes. Collectors are taking notice: Prices of Iranian contemporary art have jumped -- and they're likely to keep going up for another five or 10 years. How Westerners are getting in on the action.
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The Godmother of Iranian Art
Art Market Monitor
August 17, 2009
Art Market Monitor
by Marion Maneker
Carol Kino profiles Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller, an Iranian expatriate dealer with familial ties to the exiled Empress, who is the common thread in many successful Iranian artist's careers. One of the secrets of Heller's success is her personality and willingness to play the role of social connector.
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Iranians Shine, Assisted by Expatriate
The New York Times / by Carol Kino
August 12, 2009
In recent months biennials around the world have dedicated special sections to a hot new field: Middle Eastern artists. And many of the most celebrated hail from Iran, like Farhad Moshiri of Tehran, whose paintings covered with Swaroski crystal-encrusted calligraphy have brought $1 million-plus at auction, or Shirin Neshat of New York, widely acclaimed since the late 1990s for her films and videos featuring veiled women.
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The View From Here
August 5, 2009
The Wall Street Journal
by Melik Kaylan
The heart sinks when confronted with yet another cultural event - especially one involving Muslim culture - that promises to "break down stereotypes" or "establish dialogue" or "reframe the discourse." Usually such events assume that Western or American perceptions need correcting, and that the problem lies in perceptions alone. It's not that the material on offer lacks quality. Rather, as with the recent Muslim Voices festival here, the organizers are at pains to select what Westerners or Westernized elites at home and abroad deem the best of the cultures being celebrated. As for the tastes of the masses, the stereotypes about them may still be true.
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Featured Gallery: Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller Gallery
July 29, 2009
Kipton Art
by Zev Eisenberg
I studied art history at Brown University, and then went on to participate in Sotheby works of art program in London, and graduated with a Masters in art history and museum management from George Washington University. After working at the Hirshhorn and Guggenheim Museums in the late 70s, I worked as the curator of an investment bank for two years.
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Art in Review: Iran Inside Out
July 23, 2009
The New York Times
by Holland Cotter
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.
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Barbie in Headscarf as Iranian Artists in New York Protest Mullahs
Bloomberg
July 1, 2009
Bloomberg
by Katya Kazakina
A young Iranian woman in a minidress stabs a mullah in the eye with a golden dagger while another crouches to tie his hands as the cleric writhes on the ground.
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Iran Inside Out
Tehran Bureau
June 28, 2009
Tehran Bureau
by Leila Darabi
The line outside the Chelsea Museum on Thursday night spills down the block, a thick stream of stylishly dressed New Yorkers batting at the humid summer air with impromptu fans fashioned from the postcard invitation to the "Iran Inside Out" exhibit. There are Americans in skinny jeans toting Vespa helmets, Europeans in open collared shirts and asymmetrical dresses, and Iranians-hyphenated and non-in cocktail attire, a few sporting green ribbon accessories.
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BBC Online Reviews Iran Inside Out
June 28, 2009
BBC Online
by Pantea Bahrami
Featuring a slideshow of the exhibition and images of works by Pooneh Maghazehe, Sadegh Tirakfan, Farideh Lashai, Roya Akhavan, Shiva Ahmadi, Shahram Karimi, Bita Fayyazi, and Daryoush Gharahzad.
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Artists in Exile
June 28, 2009
CBS Evening News
by Seth Doane
Iran's defeated Presidential candidate Mousavi is being supported by many Iranians in America, some of whom are expressing anger and frustration with art.
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