Artists: Behrang Samadzadegan, Behnam Kamrani, Amirali Mohebbinejad, Negar Tahsili, Raha Faridi, Mohammad Reza Heydari, Ehsan Behmanesh, and Azin Feizabadi.
Curator: Amirali Ghasemi
Screenings /Dates:
Goethe Institut – Istanbul | Presented as a part of Conscious in Coma | 23-25 Nov 2006
Statement:
Since the beginning, video as a medium has been recognized as both an elevator and an escape route for the new generation of Iranian artists. As they started their anxious, immature experiments; video became a popular medium, although the lack of education and the considerable cultural gap besides the availability, transferability, and ease of use made this journey quite fragile, expect the few “successful” established artists who emphasize on the exotic face of their country of origin made them able to jump on the “train,” the rest are producing boring materials for the weak small-scaled but good looking elitist! Art scene. But on the other hand, others are not well known, not board On the train, not famous but still eager to make a kind of art which is not only for export, not aimed at the cul-de-sac of Euro-American market. Most of these videos are chosen from the Parkingallery video library with no specific point of view or resemblance, but the fact of being unseen and interesting.
Artist(s): Azin Feizabadi
Title: Golha (Flowers)
Country of production: Iran
Year: 2005
It is about beauty – it is about flowers
This project deals with the word “beauty,” the kind of beauty you can find in the traditional, oriental, and visual language and mythology. It can also be perceived as modern kitsch. This visual language exists as an Instrument of political or religious propaganda. The “beauty” in the “Golha” project can only appear in a dialogue with the viewers, the artist himself, and the context in which the work will be shown.
Artist(s): Ehsan Behmanesh
Title: Instead of life
Country of production: Iran
Year: 2004
A documentary video based on interviews about depression and footage from “Depression catwalk” backstage in parkingalley, shown in Azad art gallery, Tehran as a part of “deep depression” in 2004. The video beside …..
Artist(s): Behrang Samadzadegan
Title: Open Seas
Country of production: Iran
Year: 2006
Open Seas was produced initially to participate in the 5th Gyumri biennial (2006 Armenia), with “Sea: Dreams & illusions.” In fact, as an artist from middle-east, it was my imagination about a geopolitical concept: the Open Sea. An area full of oil sites, foreign soldiers, and environmental pollution. It is an open gate that brings war, death, and division to its local citizens as everlasting gifts.
Artist(s): Raha Faridi
Title: A Tooth in Decay
Country of production: Iran
Year: 2004
Raha Faridi describes this experimental video more like a self-therapy film, herself.
Artist(s): Amirali Mohebbinejad
Title: Shimmery, Smoky, Scummy
Country of production: Iran
Year: 2006
About Four minutes – Three episodes – Two moods – One concept – Zero side effect
Episode one (Name, Time, Sound)
Shimmery, 1:06, Let’s fade Together (Frantz Ferdinand)
Episode two (Name, Time, Sound)
Smoky, 2:03, Circle, Square, triangle (Amirali)
Episode Three (Name, Time, Sound)
Scummy, 1:03, when the sun goes down (Arctic Monkeys)
Artist(s): Mohammad Reza Heydari
Title: 2 Minutes Watching Moon Around
Country of production: Iran
Year: 2005
This is the 1st part of a trilogy called “Around, Inside & Backside.” The father & the son kill each other in different scenes for a veiled reason.
Artist(s): Negar Tahsili
Title: Of One Essence
Country of production: Iran
Year: 2005
A famous poem of “Sa’adi,” an Iranian poet, focuses on the kindship of all humans. The same poem is used to grace the entrance of the United Nations building in New York with this call for breaking all barriers: “The sons of Adam are limbs of each other,/ Having been created of one essence. /When the calamity of time affects one limb,/ The other limbs cannot remain at rest./ If thou hast no sympathy for the troubles of others/ Thou art unworthy to be called by the name of a human.”
Artist(s): Behnam Kamrani
Title: Clothes for Gabriel
Country of production: Iran
Year: 2005
Text: Cloth is engaged with a long history in Iranian culture. Mystic clothes were used as means of showing power. They had many symbolic meanings that might have been changed through different eras. “Putting on” (Eltebas) is a philosophical term used by the great Sufi, Roozbehan, which indicates a process through which the invisible turns into the visible. In this video, the cloth is a site of spirituality; such a situation refers to the transcendent and the descendent of Gabriel, the angel. Spirituality is put into the image by the transparency of the cloth and the slow motion, while on the other hand, the cloth in the picture connotes an imagination of the body.