Artists: Mazdak Ayari, Majid Bakhtiari Vafa, Jassem Ghazbanpour, Kaveh Golestan, Peyman Hooshmandzadeh, Bahman Jalali, Rana Javadi, Aidin Rahimipour Azad, Tahmineh Monzavi, Mehdi Vosoghnia, and Mohsen Yazdipour
Black and White images are becoming rare. They are mostly printed in newspapers and books, usually chosen for economic reasons or used as mere visual effect. All around the world most of the events of the 1960s and 1970s, both political and personal quests, were associated with black and white photography. Back in 1970s ,in true Iranian fashion, Journalistic neutrality with shrewdly observed cultural insights and reporting , was combined with lyrical and poetical story telling.During the Revolution and in the eight years of war, breathtaking events encouraged Iranian photographers to continue on the same path. For many of us those images of the Iraq-Iran war shot by Kaveh Golestan or Bahman Jalali continue to linger on and haunt the memory. The border line between documentary photography and its ethics of pure photography, and a series or one image out of a series becoming a piece of art photography, is extremely delicate and only a handful can work within the genre’s restrictions to achieve it. In his selection, Arash Hanaei salutes the works of photographers who have worked tirelessly and often without least expectation of fame and fortune. In the meantime his sharp eye has picked up images that go far beyond mere documentation, entirely through ingenious and unique works of these photographers;by including two very young photographers in the exhibition, the curator is hinting at the continuity of a well-traveled path in Iran’s contemporary documentary photography.