FAR AND NEAR DISTANCE is showing a collection, seen for the first time in Germany, of contemporary works by Iranian artists.
The revolution, young victims of the Iran-Iraq war and Kurdish resistance fighters are themes taken up by Kaveh Golestan. Khosrow Hassan Zadeh takes a close look at the consequences of religious doctrine: his “Faheshe” series shows the faces of murdered prostitutes – all victims of a fanatic.
The works of some of the exiled artists are very autobiographical. Marjane Satrapi, a cartoonist living in Paris, relates her own history to that of her home country. Parastou Forouhar uses design objects as projection screens to convey his personal experiences of political repression, whilst Shahram Entekhabi explores the motifs underlying his emigration in his monumental installation “Kilid”.
The distance from “home” is also reflected in the way artists are turning to aesthetic and conceptual questions. Whereas Ali Mahdavi thematises the contradiction between magnificent décor and physical imperfection with his expensively dressed animal carcasses, internationally acclaimed architect Siah Armajani explores the relationship between form and space and the absence of humanity.
The young generation of artists, in contrast, relies on humour and ironic exaggeration. In tragicomic video sequences, Ghazel parodies their attempts to combine laws governing dress with modern lifestyles. In his spatial installation “Living Room Ultra Mega X”, Farhad Moshiri finds an overextravagant metaphor for the ambitions of the emergent Tehran middle class. Against this rich world of imagery, the video work of Shirn Neshat – probably the most famous artist at the exhibition – strikes one as a total minimalist. In peaceful scenes, she allows a radically reduced form language to unfold, thereby raising universal questions about the relationship between the sexes and the possibilities of being. The exhibition artists are: Abbas, Siah Armajani, Maziar Bahari, Shahram Entekhabi, Parastou Forouhar, ShaTues. Ghadirian, Ghazel, Kaveh Golestan, Khosrow Hassan Zadeh, Peyman Hooshmandzadeh, Abbas Kiarostami, Ali Mahdavi, Mehran Mohajer, Farhad Moshiri, Shirin Neshat, Marjane Satrapi, SHAHRZAD Collective, Farkhondeh Shahroudi, Mitra Tabrizian
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