Amsterdam-Budapest and the focus on Iranian art

Earlier this month I have visited Amsterdam-based FOAM photography museum to check Kaveh Golestan's The Citadel 1975-77 photo documentary project of Tehran's Shahr-e No red light district. Literally translated as a "New City" Shahr-e No was an old 1920 neighborhood that got surrounded by walls in 1953 exclusively inhabited by female and young male prostitutes. The entrance to the ghetto where prostitutes were walking on the streets semi-naked was through one gate and only men were allowed to enter the citadel. 

Few weeks before the victory of the 1979 Islamic revolution the activists burned and demolished the "sin city" with undisclosed number of residents trapped inside, the survived inhabitants were later executed as a part of post-revolutionary cultural cleaning. The area has been converted into a recreational zone with a park and a pond. Thus, Golestan's photo archive is one of the few remained documentations that trace back nowadays unspoken and shameful part of Tehran city's history. Women most of whom he befriended during almost two year-lasting project are humanized through the lens of Kaveh's camera that captures natural, non-staged moments of their daily lives. Vintage photographs together with a newspaper compilation, Golestan's diaries and other materials such as Iranian authorities documents as well as audio-taped interviews of the women living in the citadel immersed me in their ambience of misery and despear. 

Shahr-e No's citadel 1920 plan

Kaveh Golestan's The Prostitutes series, 1975-1977. Source: artist's website

This week theme of Shahr-e No unexpectedly reappeared during my Hungarian Easter getaway at Budapest's Mûcsarnok with New-York based Shirin Neshat's small, but very powerful video installation exhibition. This first Budapest solo show comprises from a surrealistic two-channel 1993 Rapture video shot in Marocco and a twenty-minute chapter Zarin where the leading role is played by a Hungarian actress Orsi Tóth. This 2005 piece is about Shahr-e No resident Zarin who decided to flee the ghetto and her humiliating present. A part of the artist's bigger reclaimed project based on 1989 Women Without Men novel by Shahrnush Parsipur, this video chapter is aesthetically and eloquently reveals an unpleasant and controversial topic of women in society and their sexual exploitation.

Stills from Shirin Neshat's 2005 Zarin video 

Shirin Neshat's 2009 Silver Lion awarded Women Without Men trailer with English subtitles

Shirin Neshat's 2009 Silver Lion awarded Women Without Men full movie in Farsi

Post-screening discussion with Shirin Neshat and Shoja Azari

Note: Kaveh Golestan's exhibition in FOAM lasts until May 4, 2014 and Shirin Neshat's - April 27, 2014.

Cosmic Geometry by Monir Farmanfarmaian

Monir Farmanfarmaian, an Iranian artist, born in 1924 in Qazvin, left for New York during WWII. “I wasn’t bad looking,” she says, “so everyone invited me to their parties.” This is how she met The Irascibles (Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko) and worked under Andy Warhol for Bonwit Teller. 

Called "a role model for the artist of the twenty-first century" by Hans Ulrich Obrist, she was merging traditional geometric forms with Sufi spirituality, her love to birds, in particular, nightingales,  and her childhood spent in a grand old house full of stained glass and wall paintings. 

To me, her works recall early childhood memories of seeing Persian miniatures' frames mosaic made out of fish bones and wood in the bazaars of Tehran and visiting Shāh-é-Chérāgh Mosque in Shiraz. In fact, this site was a point of inspiration for Monir Farmanfarmaian to experiment with glass pieces. 

“We sat there for half an hour, and it was like a living theater,” she notes. “People came in all their different outfits and wailed and begged to the shrine, and all the crying was reflected all over the ceiling … I said to myself, I must do something like that, something that people can hang in their homes.”

Group I (Convertible Series), 2010, mirror, reverse-glass painting, and plaster on wood, dimensions variable according to a set variation of patterns 

Triangle and Square, 2008, mirror, reverse-glass painting, and plaster on wood, 39 2/5 in. x 63 in.

 Birds of Paradise, 2008, mirror mosaic and reverse glass painting, 180x129 cm each

 The Two Cycles

The Ethereal by Y.Z. Kami

Y.Z. Kami, Iranian-born artist Chelsea studio

“If you look at it from a distance, it looks focused. But the more you get closer to it, it gets very fuzzy. I wanted to give the viewer the feeling that the light is coming from the hand, so, the viewer has a mystical experience.”

Y.Z.Kami

His other works from the current exhibition reminded me the show of another Iranian artist, Shiraz-born Shirazeh Houshiary by Lisson Gallery at Venice 2013 Biennial (hopefully, one day all the photos will be uploaded!)

If in NY don't miss his solo show at Gagosian NY that runs through February 22, 2014. Opening Reception on 2014-01-16 from 18:00 to 20:00

To watch the interview:

Source: Blouin Artinfo