Thursday, October 29, 2009

LIMITED ACCESS II - Tehran 2009

LIMITED ACCESS II

VIDEO | SOUND | PERFORMANCE

Organized by Parkingallery in collaboration with Azad Art Gallery and Mooweex.com

Azad Art Gallery No 5, Salmas Square, Golha Square, Tehran
31 October – 4 November 2009
Daily Visiting Hours: Fri – Wed 4-8 pm
Opening night and performances: Friday 30 October, 4-8 pm
Curated by
Miha Colner / Ida Hirsenfelder (Ljubljana/SL) | Amirali Ghasemi (Parkingallery/Tehran) | Arash Khakpour (Mooweex/Tehran) | Bita Razavi (Helsinki/FI) |Sarah Rifky (Cairo/EG) | Shirin Sabahi (Malmo/SE) | Rozita Sharafjahan (Azad Art Gallery/IR)

Access to what? What limitations?

LIMITED ACCESS sounds like a disappointing title for a project, but in fact it’s not really true, it has a kind of ambiguity within it, which is a characteristic of Parkingallery projects. One should ask : “Access to what?” and “What limitations?”
In the past decade, Iranian Contemporary art and specially New Media Arts has been through many ups and downs, either in the time which was temporarily celebrated by the authorities and officials, by a considerable budget and space, without necessarily establishing a constant and appropriate structure for its survival in future, or when it visibly slowed down its development at least outside of the unofficial and private circles of artists in the recent years. And as we speak the numbers of curators and art lovers who are frequently visiting Tehran, for various reasons and intentions is highly increasing, specially now when the international Media zoomed more than ever, on Iran. The Art Market despite recent hiccups is heating up by its discoveries of middle eastern and Iranian art shows from LA to Dubai, filled with repetitive names of superstars. Meanwhile there is an independent creative scene which is emerging and is undoubtedly hard to track and describe, as its variance and its continuity lies in its anonymity. In the absence of an inclusive reference for a proper research on multi fragmented Tehran art scene, most of the attempts which has been done to map and document the scene, remained unfinished and to some degree clueless because of the intentional shifts toward the art market and/or falling into the traps of tribal self promotional concerns of few.
LIMITED ACCESS therefore tries to gather and reconnect the artists from all disciplines to each other and reestablish their link with their emerging audience. As we believe that what is labeled and being marketed as “Iranian contemporary art” to the art world is quite known and accessible despite all propaganda, as many individuals and collectives are paying their dues for its exposure and growth internationaly, even by conflicting objectives and means. What is really missing here is a local platform, which though its structure, experiments in New Media can be seen and discussed , beyond the closed circle of the artists practicing it.
As delayed echos of such phenomenon, often passing through mediums like Internet, books and other medias might turn the viewer into a passive consumer rather than a critical observer.
These limitations could be caused by many factors, from the imposed sanctions to unofficial boycotts, to the emergence of market-oriented attitude among artists as a result of periodic temporary reception of Iranian art all around the world, beside as some other may put it, the fact that contemporary art is being rarely mentioned in the mainstream media, ignored to some extent and not supported any more. All these excuses are not enough to prevent us from taking the current moment for granted even if it would seem hopeless to many, and shape the future by observing and learning from it.
Amirali Ghasemi, Parkingallery Oct 2009

Jazire-ye Sargardani (The Wander Island)

8513 hours in Helsinki

(one)self as (an)other

Intelligent Systems

Whoever I Like Turns out to be a Weirdo, or Performative Narrations

Saturday, October 03, 2009

the NEW parkingallery

Parkingallery is changing from an E- gallery/ nice looking static website to a multifunctional blog / news portal on Iranian and international contemporary arts and design… this decision has been made through around a year of less frequent activities on our website focusing on other projects including the our monumental mega exhibition in a suitcase: URBAN JEALOUSY/The roaming biennial of Tehran . There are other reasons to shift our activities from plain showcasing up and coming artists to a more advanced way of paying our due to the community of Iranian involved with arts, to name a few:

1st of all because of the fact that the way we Iranians are dealing with Internet phenomenon and its fabulous growth in Iran despite obstacles raining from everywhere (!), we are encouraging our artists friends to setup their own personal websites and try our best to help them both as design studio and a project space to promote and maintain their website while benefit from being linked and featured in our refreshed website.

Secondly despite we’ve never have been acting as a commercial gallery, an increasing numbers of the artists used to work with us did or about to sign restricting contracts with individual, institutions and galleries,which made us think to refresh what we has been showing on our website for over a decade, to be experimental and less conventional and more and more away from sophisticated mainstream trends, and more importantly focused on new media art projects and knowledge production it the field of interdisciplinary practices.

we believe that current circumstances forces by various players in the scene made circulation of the art and its makers and contributors in Iran going through severe unfair issues, caused many talented young artist to be ignored to to fall into early professionalism which kills their interest and reduce their intention for experimental projects and practices, having said that what is really a nessesity of our time is building up an news portal/idea exchange pool which aims to track what’s happening now in the art scene by documenting see-worthy happening and events and what has been through by interviewing the key figures in the field, helping us to discover the lines between the lines of unwritten history of our own! ( wow what a big claim!)

Finally to find practical way to make parkingallery’s archive on contemporary arts, which has been evolving through the years, available online and to public.

To make all this happen, we are looking for contributors from around the world who are interested in the arts and its universe to join our team and/or help us as freelance reporters and photographers, we will write more about this call, very soon.

That’s all for now…

Warm wishes from Parkingallery’s Headquarter

Parkingallery Team

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Scraps, a poster exhibition by Behrad Javanbakht

"Scraps"

A poster collection designed by "Behrad Javanbakht" will exhibit at "Morteza Momayez" gallery of "Iranian Artists' Forum".

This is the first solo exhibition of this artist that will be opened on Saturday April 18th 2009, at 17:30 till April 22nd.

"Iranian Artists' Forum" is placed in Baghe Honar, Mousavi St., Taleghani Ave., Tehran, Iran.

Visiting hours: 10:00 to 20:00

This exhibition is collaborated by "Iranian Graphic Designers Society" and is sponsored by "Print and design house" co., "Media" design consultant co., Maryam Soft co., Avajang ICT group, "Dara" prints studio, "akkasee" website and "Rang" e-magazine.

Monday, February 09, 2009

Shopping Malls by Saghar Daeeri

Shopping Malls
Painting Exhibition by Saghar Daeeri
13-19 February 2009
16:00 - 20:00
Azad Art Gallery
No 5, Salmas Sq, Golha Sq, Tehran, Iran
Tel: +98 21 8800 8676
Poster designed by Iman Raad

Saghar Daeeri 2008, Tehran Shopping Malls, 100x150 CM acrylic on canvas

Friday, January 23, 2009

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

MARCOPOLO Exhibition by Hamed Sahihi

MARCOPOLO
Exhibition by Hamed Sahihi
30 Jan - 11 Feb
Visiting Hours: 4-8 pm
Opening Friday 30 Jan

Azad Art Gallery
No 5 Salmas sq, Golha sq, Tehran- IRAN

Khan wonders when Polo has had time to travel. It seems to him that Polo has never moved from the garden. Polo responds that everything he sees and does assumes a meaning in a place like where they sit. When he concentrates and remembers he is always in this garden in the emperor's presence, even though he continues without pausing up a river. Khan is no longer sure if he is sitting in the garden or riding through the lands that Marco is describing. Polo suggests that the garden may only exist in their minds and that their travels have not yet ended. Each time they partially close their eyes they are allowed to return to the peace of the garden. Khan wonders if this dialogue is actually taking place between two beggars with imitation names, Khan & Marcopolo.

Parkingallery News

Thursday, October 29, 2009