Present Perfect Tense: Shirin Sabahi at KHM Gallery

KHM Gallery

Ystadvägen 22A, Malmö
31 January – 14 February 2009
Tuesday to Sunday, 13:00 – 17:00
Opening Friday 30 January, 17:00 – 21:00
Artist Talk Thursday 05 February, 15:00

In Present Perfect Tense Shirin Sabahi works with moving images, examining old and current views of image production by using an objet trouvé – 8 mm format home movies by a Swedish pre-war journalist. In the film, Present Participle, through a voiceover Sabahi reveals different narrative positions. The speaking subjects are real and fictitious, oscillating between the author of the artifacts, the author of the artworks and a third party – the archivist, who is also the journalist's son. In Present Perfect Tense images of the past – mainly of Paris and middle-class Sweden before the Second World War – are transformed into a critique of the present. The use of different narrative positions articulates the complicity of these voices and time periods. The film becomes a visual biography that challenges the original author of the footage, the Swedish tourist. At the same time it shifts our focus from the personal towards the collective, speaking of both cosmopolitan and nationalist politics and the ways in which they manifest in personal narratives.

Stills from the film are also presented, as arbitrary visual quotes. One slide show called Past Simple captures faces glancing into the camera. The other three black and white slides under the title Past Participle confront us with the protagonist of the films and thereby brings the 'present tense' to the fore. Present Perfect Tense is a playful experience with different forms of gaze and voice, which ultimately acknowledges us, the audience.

Emese Suvecz

For more information and selected high-resolution images for publicity use please contact: info@shirinsabahi.com

The Massive Calm

The Massive Calm
Painting exhibition by Samira Eskandarfar
26th - 31st Dec, 2008.
visiting hours : 16 - 20 p.m.
No. 41 Fatemi Sq. Golha sq. Salmas sq. Tehran Iran,
Tel: +98 21 88008676
Website: http://www.samiraeskandarfar.com/

Poster Designed by Amirali Ghasemi

Urban Jealousy in Berlin

Urban Jealousy in Berlin
The 1st International Roaming Biennial of Tehran, Berlin
20 Nov.2008 - 7 Dec. 2008
Urban Jealousy in Berlin
International Roaming Biennial of Tehran, curated and organized by Amirali Ghasemi and Serhat Koksal,chose Istanbul as its first station .The idea of this independent, low-budget exhibition started out both as a critique of the situation in Tehran, and of the international " Biennialization" and '' Gentrification '' process.
Featured works by artists from different countries from all around the world, selected from an open submission call, which
has had an overwhelming response.Berlin is it's 2nd station.

Sideways in Tehran

Sideways in Tehran

------------------------------------
with works and contributions from:
Bassam Chekhes
Atousa Bandeh Ghiasabadi
Katrin Korfmann
Sara Blokland
Nickel van Duijvenboden
and
Tina Rahimy
------------------
How does a shift in the context of a piece of art influence its ability to be recognized and the validity of the work? How can art be judged from another culture? Is quality universal?

These questions are the starting point of the project Sideways.

Atousa Bandeh Ghiasabadi / Visual Artist/ Film Maker asked 5 artist and writers to research this questions and produce an artwork to be presented in two different exhibitions one in Tehran and in the Netherlands and finalized with a Publication(book).
Sideways in Tehran will literary replacing the context.
Bandeh being part of a minority group with a non-western background in the Netherlands often questioned the comprehensibility of her work by the western audience not familiar with her cultural history. Now she will reverse the process by exhibiting works of a group of artist in the context which is familiar to Bandeh but not to them. In this she hope to find out a more objective approach through her own experience but also through the experiences by participants of Sideways.

Katrin Korfmann / visual artist, living in Amsterdam, NL
Katrin Korfmann is analyzing the often-quoted ´magic moment´ of photography. Or we could say she plays with it. The time factor of the ´magic moment´ is stretched, deconstructed, duplicated and subsequently assembled.She observes places of daily life, humans and machines, stages of public space.
Finally the space and the experienced time at the location is documented en coded again to a location never experienced like this. The image is document and invention at the same time.
For the project sideways Korfmann relates to her hometown West-Berlin (Germany) and the change of the city since the wall came down. The photograph fast forward (Checkpoint Charlie) 145 x 253 cm is showing a crossing point between former East and West Berlin. 20 years after the cold war this spot is one of the most demanded tourist attractions of the city. Fake American and Russian soldiers play theatre there. They sell visas with stamps and are bargaining over original gasmasks and GDR flags.
For money one can pose with the soldier to get the most wanted holiday snapshot.
The monument of the cold war becomes a funny game. A busy movement, a film set, where visitors try to catch the spectacular moments of German history.

Sara Blokland / visual artist
Her works often explores the representation of the concept of family, exploring the confusion and ambiguity between the personal and impersonal. As a artist she interested in deconstructing the exotic subject, and reconstructing new ones. Her photographic images challenge the exotic presumptions of the dominant culture. How is the exotic part of the representation of the Western artist in the search for a ‘’original view’ and understanding the subject..In two short films ‘’Brother’’ and ‘’Roos’’, she will reflect on photography as a ''exotic'' object and incorporating the personal experience of one viewer and photographer.

Nickel van Duijvenboden Photographer/writer turned from photography to writing and is operating in the grey area between visual art and literature. He uses his experiences as a former member of a punk band as a point of departure for a short fiction — punk being a highly idealistic, non-conformist subculture which is supposedly Western (or is it?). In Teheran, he will combine photographs with a text about one particular aspect of his experiences."

Bassam Chekhes (Syria, 1965) Film Maker graduated from audiovisual department at the rietveld academy and mainly is making short films.The subjects of his films are related to his personal surrounding and have a direct contact with his own experience, as if they are a dairy or a biography.He prefers to work with different images as the starting elements for his films rather than text or a complete script, and to experiment the relation between the subject of the film and the related form that finally get."

Tina Rahimy philosopher researching at Erasmus university Rotterdam

Her research will focus on the choice of literature as a form of expression. Why do strangers, like refugees choose to write, why do they choose language of the host country? Language, the most demanding element, the crown witness of our alienation, not only in its content but also in its form. Do these writers however believe in the deficiency of their speech, or rather acknowledge the hesitation in and of a language as and characteristic element of any speech?

Sideways is sponsored by Visual Arts, Architecture & Design fund Netherlands Fonds BKVB
The exhibition is organized & curated by Amirali Ghasemi
Sideways project is a project by Atousa Bandeh Ghiasabadi Artist/Filmmaker Intendant for Cultural Diversity, Sideways started in 2007 and will be finalized by presenting a book and an exhibition in the Netherlands in 2009.

Poster is designed by Behrad Javanbakht for Parkingallery Studio.

Call for art the 1st International Roaming Biennial of Tehran

Urban Jealousy
the 1st International Roaming Biennial of Tehran
30th May - 6th July 2008
Curated by Serhat koksal and Amirali Ghasemi

Download the Application in WORD documents here (Choose Your Langugae)
Farsi, French, English and Turkish

Dead line: Monday 21st of April 2008

The theme of this biennial is URBAN JEALOUSY. A Jalousie * (“jealousy” in French) is a window that one can see through but not be seen; barriers that allow us to observe the world without being invited to the table. Iranian artists are given an understanding of what goes on in the world without being offered a single opportunity to communicate their thoughts—outside of our very own jalousie window: a rigid ethnic frame within an extremely politicized context.

Of all the huge urban areas around the world, Tehran stands out as a different kind of Megalopolis. It boasts one of the most dynamic art scenes in the Middle East even as the city itself deals with a rudimentary public transport system, an exploding population crisis, and an ever-increasing sprawl of mass housing; An unsightly city of experimental architecture that swallows entire villages and towns without offering them any sort of public services.

Despite its complicated urban situation—which according to experts has already spiraled out of control—artists’ societies in Tehran continue to hold numerous biennials in semi-tribal fashion. A great number of these events are government-sponsored projects whose outlook and also their premises can shift 180 degrees from one year to the next. Each community has its own set of ceremonies, as a result of which, any sense of solidarity among the artists is lost.

The Tehran Visual Arts Festival, The Calligraphy Biennial, The Sculpture Biennial, The Cartoon Biennial, The Painting Biennial of the Islamic World, The Graphic Design Biennial, The Children’s Books Illustration Biennial, The Painting Biennial, The Poster Biennial, The Poster Biennial of the Islamic World… the list is endless.

Although the legendary "TEHRAN BIENNIAL" goes back 50 years, not a single one of the above-mentioned events can be considered a biennial by prevailing and accepted international standards". An arts society recently published a call to boycott the upcoming Painting Biennial in order to demand a professionally curated exhibition, protesting the open call process and a “jury” they deemed unacceptable.

It seems impossible to have a proper Tehran biennial in Tehran, so our sprawling city and its elitist art scene remain excluded from the highly competitive art market in the region despite being surrounded from all sides by lucrative biennials and auctions. We may have great artists living and working in Iran, but we don’t have a chance to share the profits.

Tehran, as one may suppose, does not seem interested in presenting itself as a desirable destination for cultural tourism, by playing it ‘cool’ like other global cities, or scramble to be hip by coughing up the membership dues to be in the international art market.

So, to jumpstart the process, and after a long discussion with my friend, Serhat Koksal — a critic of the global biennialization process — we decided to curate a ‘mini’, on the move, Tehran biennial. To not only stop complaining about the current situation but to benefit from the advantages of it. An independent, low- budget, traveling exhibition which can be presented almost anywhere. We will travel like nomads, carrying artwork, objects, texts, and whatever, in a package no bigger than a medium-sized suitcase, preferably weighing less than 20 Kg., so it can be carried on any cheap flight.

Urban Jealousy will end its journey in May 2010,but Tehran’s Roaming Biennial will carry on.Feb 2008

Treibsand DVD magazine launches officially in Tehran

The 1st issue of Treibsand DVD magazine: "[Analysing while Waiting (For Time To Pass)] contemporary art from Tehran" launches officially in Tehran on 17th of April.
Concept by Curator, Susann Wintsch & Artist, Parastou Forouhar

Venue: Azad Art Gallery, No 41 , Salmas sq., Golha sq., Tehran +(98)(21)88008676
Time and Date: 17-19 April , 408 pm

Featuring Artists :
Iman Afsarian| Nazgol Ansarinia| Mehraneh Atashi| Mahmoud Bakhshi-Moakhar| Shahrzad Darafsheh| Samira Eskandarfar| Farhad Fozouni| Nina Ghaffari| Amirali Ghasemi| Barbad Golshiri| Arash Hanaei| Ghazaleh Hedayat| Elahe Heidari| Behnam Kamrani| Simin Keramati| Khosro Khosravi/Farid Jafari| Mehran Mohajer| Ahmad Morshedlou| Neda Razavipour /Shahab Fotouhi| Hamed Sahihi| Rozita Sharaf Jahan| Jinoos Taghizadeh| Sadegh Tirafkan

Statements from:
Iman Afsarian| Haleh Anvari| Khosrow Hassanzadeh| Sohrab Mahdavi| Ruyin Pakbaz| Alireza Sami Azar| Soghra Zare Anaghezi|

Poster Designed by Farhad Fozouni

Analysing while Waiting (For Time To Pass)

Treibsand [Volume 01], contemporary video art from Teheran

04/26/07, 20:00

Curator Susann Wintsch presents the DVD Treibsand with contemporary video art from Teheran.
TREIBSAND [VOLUME 01] «Analysing while Waiting (For Time To Pass)» sheds light on contemporary and emerging art in Tehran, concentrating predominantly on an analytical stance in times of waiting. Waiting for the future may be expressed as yearning or depression, or it may appear as a long, protracted period in which past and present are analysed in depth from a personal and post-colonialist viewpoint. The concept has been drawn up in close collaboration with Parastou Forouhar (Frankfurt am Main/Tehran).

Artists
Iman Afsarian, Nazgol Ansarinia, Mehraneh Atashi, Mahmoud Bakhshi-Moakhar, Shahrzad Darafsheh, Samira Eskandarfar, Farhad Fozouni, Nina Ghaffari, Amirali Ghasemi, Barbad Golshiri, Arash Hanaei, Ghazaleh Hedayat, Elahe Heidari, Behnam Kamrani, Simin Keramati, Khosro Khosravi/Farid Jafari, Mehran Mohajer, Ahmad Morshedlou, Neda Razavipour /Shahab Fotouhi, Hamed Sahihi, Rozita Sharaf Jahan, Jinoos Taghizadeh, Sadegh Tirafkan

Statements
Iman Afsarian, artist and editor; Haleh Anvari, artist and journalist; Khosrow Hassanzadeh, artist; Sohrab Mahdavi, editor of TehranAvenue.com; Ruyin Pakbaz, art and art history professor; Alireza Sami Azar, curator; Soghra Zare Anaghezi, artist

Links: Treibsand DVD Magazin

See also: Susann Wintsch