Art in Review: Iran Inside Out
July 23, 2009 Back to News
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.
Click Here to Read More
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.
Click Here to Read More
