Iran at 58th International Art Exhibition – Venice Biennale

Iran is taking part in the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia (Venice Biennale), dubbed Of Being and Singing, in Venice, Italy.

The program runs from May 11th to November 24th. The pre-opening session will be from May 8 to 10.

Of Being and Singing is commissioned by Hadi Mozaffari of the Visual Arts Affair Office and organized by Mahdi Afzali, the CEO of Institute for Development of Contemporary Arts. The program will showcase works by Reza Lavassani, Samira Alikhanzadeh and Ali Meer Azimi. The exhibition opens to the press on May 8 and to the public on May 11 at Fondanco Marcello, a known space next to Rialto.

Based on the 58th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, May You Live in Interesting Times, of Being and Singing is homage to life and precious moments of the past, present and future. The exhibition carries a message of peace from the cultural and artistic scene of Iran, a message seldom relayed to the world by contemporary media. 

Representing Iran are three artists hailing from various disciplines who magnify the glory of being and time, identity and memory, reality and dreams. Challenging the cliché notions of Iranian art as mostly composed of local elements and motifs, these artists represent the universal aspects of Iranian art through their artistic terminology.

Tehran-born and based, Reza Lavassani (1962), practices on various media. He began working on the installation Life in 2012 and worked on the piece for more than three years. Through a deliberate choice of papier-mâché, the artist underlines the literal and symbolic significance of recycling. The piece is a lyric narrative of life’s splendor and glory and an emblematic visualization of the passage of time. The awe-inspiring presentation, executed in Lavansani’s signature aesthetic language, portrays the artist’s belief in recreation and the eternal cycle of life. Life is a focus on theatricality of sculpture and installation.

Samira Alikhanzadeh (1967) deals with memory with an eye on the future. Born and raised in Tehran, she holds a painting diploma from the University of Art but departed from painting after her first exhibition and turned to new media art, which she felt was representative of her own time.

Using family photographs as raw material; her praxis is one of image manipulation to explore ideas of identity and memory. Alikhanzadeh cuts out faces and portraits from their original photographic backgrounds and places them on a mesh, guiding viewers from observation of a photograph to construction of a visual narrative.

Ali Meer Azimi (1984) lives and works in Esfahan. Azimi draws inspiration from cinema, philosophy and visual arts and creates deeply narrative pieces, shifting and experimenting with different disciplines in the process. Working on the idea of shot, reverse shot and reversal of depth and connecting these concepts with language disorders and dreams, his interactive installation is based on a comparative analysis of phonemic language acquisition between children and pre-puberty finches.

The graphic of the exhibition is designed by Reza Abedini. The program will run under the auspices of Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Guidance – Deputy of Artistic Affairs, Visual Arts Affair Office, Institute of Contemporary Arts Development, and Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. The show is produced by sponsorship of Ayandeh Bank.

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