Three Iranian stories

Three views tell, through three different approaches, the history of a country with multiple and complex faces.

Today’s Iran is the fruit of a thousand-years-old civilization, of ancestral traditions, but also of recent history : the Islamic revolution, the war with Iraq, the "Iranian green movement". Between periods of openness and censorship, the Iranian artists find thanks to the photographic medium a space of freedom and expression that passes essentially through metaphor and allegory. Photography becomes, like poetry, a way of subverting repression.

© Babak Kazemi, Exit of Shirin & Farhad, 2012. Courtesy de la galerie Silk Road et de l’artiste.

With "The Exit of Shirin and Farhad", Babak Kazemi offers a modern writing of one of the greatest classical texts of Persian culture, "Shirin and Farhad" by the poet Nezami Ganjavi (1175). Revisiting this patrimonial love story through photography is a roundabout way for the artist to evoke the current struggles of those who have to go into exile to find love and freedom.

© Morvarid K, The Thin Line, 2016. Courtesy de l’artiste.

Morvarid K’s "The Thin Line" explores the boundaries that separate two worlds, two cultures, two imaginaries. The overlay of two photographs, one taken in Iran, the other somewhere else, brings about a third reality, that of men and women who, like the artist herself, are inhabited by different cultures. These images of a great poetry bring out the invisible, the absence, this missing part that goes through all identity quest.

For « Iranian families », Mohsen Rastani has been traveling the country since 1990 to collect these portraits of Iranian families. The white backdrop used by the photographer to pose his subjects is an essential element of his approach. These anonymous characters are erected in icons, the monumental composition of the work gives them a heroic, mythical grandeur.

© Mohsen Rastani, Iranian families, 2012. Courtesy de la galerie Silk Road et de l’artiste.

Whether they touch the intimate or the collective, the works collected on the occasion of this exhibition are all imbued with a visual vision and a strong poetic charge. The Iranian culture has been anchored for millennia in poetry, which is expressed today in Iran through all the visual arts.

© Babak Kazemi, Exit of Shirin & Farhad, 2012. Courtesy de la galerie Silk Road et de l’artiste.

Biographies

© Babak Kazemi, Exit of Shirin & Farhad, 2012. Courtesy de la galerie Silk Road et de l’artiste.

Babak Kazemi is a self-taught photographer born in Ahvaz, Iran, in 1983. He lives and works in Tehran.
In 2012, he received the "Magic of Persian" Contemporary Art Award from the Delfina Foundation in London.
Kazemi is particularly interested in the history of the province of Khuzestan where he grew up and in particular the impact of oil activity in the region.
His work has been featured in the collections of the Maraya Art Center, the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, the Tehran War Museum and Sharjah Sheikh’s Private Collection in the United Arab Emirates.
Babak Kazemi is represented by the Silk Road Gallery in Tehran, directed by Anahita Ghabaian.

© Morvarid K, The Thin Line, 2016. Courtesy de l’artiste.

Morvarid K was born in 1982 in Tehran. For the past ten years, she has been developing a work that combines photography, visual arts and performance. She lives and works in several countries at once.
Shaped by her identity and her Iranian roots, Morvarid K anchors her artistic work in what she calls the "invisible borders", whether intended or imposed, intimate or collective, real or imaginary. Sensitive to human complexity, Morvarid K creates dialogues between opposing forces, a source of beauty and poetry. Each of his projects is a bridge that connects identities and cultures to each other.
His photographic works are enhanced by collages, overlays and sometimes inks and drawings. These are often unique pieces. Recently, Morvarid K has broadened his artistic horizons by exploring his favorite themes through performance and interdisciplinary collaboration with artists such as choreographers Sherwood Chen and Yuko Kaseki.

© Mohsen Rastani, Iranian families, 2012. Courtesy de la galerie Silk Road et de l’artiste.

Mohsen Rastani was born in 1958 in Iran. He is a photojournalist, documentary filmmaker, professor and lecturer at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran.
Graduated in photography from the University of Tehran, Faculty of Fine Arts in 1987.
First prize of Tehran’s 10th biennial photography for black and white, Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in 2005.
Several exhibitions in Iran and abroad, including the Iranian Cultural Center of Iran, "Iranian Cultural Week", 2011 New Year Visual Arts Festival, Quai Branly Museum, Paris, "165 Years of Iranian Photography" , 2009 at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, "Silver Windows Exhibition", 2005 at Espace Electra, Paris, "Regards Persans", 2000
Mohsen Rastani is represented by the Silk Road Gallery in Tehran, directed by Anahita Ghabaian.

Previous articles concerning Iraian photography :

1. Trop loin, trop près – Aspects de la photographie iranienne contemporaine
2. Le rêve dans la zone rouge – Six photographes iraniens présentés par la galerie Silk Road de Téhéran
3. L’envers et le souvenir – Note sur Katajoun Karami
4. Œil, main, cerveau – Note sur Negar Karajiani
5. Logiconochronie XXVII : la trame même de la vacuité – Note sur Mehdi Vosoughnia