Aaran Curated Shows

Group show to commemorate 60th anniversary of Coup d’etat

Artists: A-Petgar (1914-1992), Bahman Jalali (1944-2010), Ahmad Aali, Rana Javadi, Mohamad Mehdi Tabatabaie, Farsad Labbauf, Behrang Samadzadeghan, Barbad Golshiri, and Mohammad Eskandari

And screening of Documentary film “Remembering A National Leader” by renowned director, Hossein Torabi.

Sixty years ago in august 1953 a coup d’etat orchestrated by British and American governments removed Dr.Mohammad Mosaddegh (1882 –1967), the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, from power and changed the fate of millions of people in this part of the world.
Dr. Mosaddegh was imprisoned and endured solitary confinement for three years, then he was put under house arrest until his death in 1967. Only a handful were allowed to attend his funeral, and he was buried in the living room of his house in Ahmadabad. He lies in his land deprived of a tombstone.
For decades there has been frequent attempts to obliterate his name from public life and even deny his image from the people of this ancient land. This exhibition while not attempting to, has in fact unearthed and discovered works of art that have been hidden in archives and store rooms. In a humble way this exhibition is a tribute to this extraordinary nobleman and a show of denial to those who still believe that the history is written by conquerors.

Curated by Behrang Samadzadegan and Aaran Gallery

Artists: Tanaz Amin, Aylene Bahmanipour, Hasan Kamali, Mona Kheirabadi, Nogool Mazlomi, Mehrdad Mirzapour, Keyhan Nabavi, Aliyar Rasti, Hanieh Sadri, Rene Saheb, Elnaz Salehi, and Farzad Shekari

Group show of video, installation and sculpture

Curated by Mahoor Toosi

Artists: Mohamed Eskandari, Saffaeddin Emami, Caraballo Farman, Behzad Hatefi, Ali Honarvar, Siamac Sariolghalam, Nastaran Safaei, Hamed Rashtian, Parvin Shokri, Sepideh Taraqi, and Mahoor Toosi

This is not an exhibition about America, rather it is about us, and what we yearn to realize, about what motivates us and what disappoints, it’s a reflection on us. America has long been discovered and continuously changes. In our search to understand it, each time we encounter new paradoxes, fashioned by our inner faculty: hyper-reality, the land of promises, a desert devoid of culture, the New World. These assumptions vary according to the place on Earth that we live in; As if the existence of America depends on its outer reflection. America is not limited to 77 longitude and 39 latitude, it is not simply a piece of land bordering the Tropic of Cancer and Arctic Circle. Depending on where you stand in the world your perception changes and in order to understand yourself and where you are, you are obliged to look at it. This synthesis happens in different ways and manners and this time we offer our own, from a distance of 11469 Km from the center.
Mahoor Toosi

Video, installation, photography and painting by 12 female young artists.

Artists: Sara Abri, Abnous Alborzi, Mona Aghababaee, Ghazaleh Bahiraie, Nahid Behbodian, Sara Ghanbari, Leila Ghandchi, Anahita Ghassemkhani, Sepanta Ghassemkhani, Fatemeh Fakhraimanesh, Marziyeh Fakhr, and Alishia Morasaie

Show by Majid Biglari, Ebrahim Eskandari and Hamid Hemaytian

The Chief told the Endangered Spicy that from now own he is better suited to make decisions for his own carrot. Procreation became the order of the day and soon enough the creatures could live a dreamlike life. The Unknown became the executor of the Pattern for Development… a comprehensive policy prevented extinction of species. Animated entertainment replaced drugs and prostitution. Based on a five year plan it was determined that the population of endangered species ought to rise and extinction erased.
Majid Biglari

Room No 22 is a installation about a set moment. A day that has passed. Objects and appliances that invoke common memories. A mutual feeling raised from depth and brought in to surface. A tedious voice used as a language to depict the vague story that is roaming behind the walls of the houses. Artist anticipates the reaction of the visitor. Allowing for direct reaction to subject , it’s components , color and even the prevailing though process. A day among all these days.
Ebrahim Eskandari

It is stupendous to speak of complications that are intent on self destruction. While my creations have not overstepped the boundaries of emanation, albeit in praise of seclusion; this discourse resembles the clod that the followers of Hallaj throw at him which were far graver than the others’ because one can not learn except in the manner advocated by Hallaj.
Hamid Hemaytian

It seems that every 30 years we destroy memories. With each photo burnt or Deleted we allow a tiny pixel to be lost from the greater image which is our Collective memory, that’s when reality can be re-arranged to suit the editor of the day. AKSbazi.com started working in April 2009 with an express hope to provide a forum for ordinary Iranians to recreate their own image, away from the prevalent clichés and exotic short-hands used by various acting editors. In a series of games our members show Iranian spaces and moods familiar to us all, but not ordinarily available to the outsider. Although it started life as a personal digital installation, AKSbazi.com has now become an invaluable archive of moments of life in Iran through the lens of it’s ordinary citizens. It is now a collective effort creating a platform for ‘citizen documentation’; a vault to safe-keep pixels that must not be lost again.
Haleh Anvari, founder of AKSbazi.com

Selecting Committee: Kaveh Kazemi, Shohreh Mehran, Mehran Mohajer, Neda Razavipour, and Ramin Sedighi

Selected Players for this exhibition: Sara Abri, Sasan Abri, Hediyeh Ahmadi, Mehdi Alizadeh, Ehsan Amani, Banafsheh Amin, Hoda Amin, Arash Amir Azodi, Farhad Bahram, Siavash Bakhtiarnia, Ramin Beyraghdar, Shaghayeh Cyrous, Shirin Eghtesadi, Hamed Farhangi, Dana Farzanehpour, Ershad Fattahian, Sara Ghanbari, Sepanta Ghassemkhani, Ceemin Golshan, Hoofar Haghighi, Hana Hanayi, Mehdi Hassani, Samira Hatamizadeh, Mokhtar Hosseinzadeh, Amir Jadidi, Mostafa Jafari, Poolad Javaher Haghighi, Sohrab Kashani, Fardid Khadem, Mahsa Khalilpour, Bahman Kiarostami, Abbas Kowsari, Majid Lashkari, Niloofar Lohrasbi, Ehsan Mansoori, Babak Mehrabani, Nazanin Mirzabeigi, Nima Moghimi, Behnam Moharrek, Ali Akbar Mohamadkhani, Amir Mousavi, Afrooz Nabavi, Pendar Nabipour, Siavash Naghshbandi, Mohammad Nickdel, Majid Niketeghad, Omid Omidvari, Aliyar Rasti, Hamideh Razavi, Bita Reyhani, Sara Reyhani, Sara Salahi, Hessam Samavatian, Amir Arad Sanaei, Delbar Shahbaz, Behnaz Shamshiri, Hesam Tahamtan, Mahsa Tahamtan, Mohammad Mehdi Zaboli, Sara Zandevakili

Solo show by Jinoos Taghizadeh

They are young, energetic and modest artists and endeavoring to reach the height of their abilities through their curious eyes and sensitive conscious, paying attention to their surroundings away from all the hoopla. This is a familiar spirit for me. It reminds me of some of my friends and acquaintances of many years; my artist friends who “incidentally’ happen to be mostly female. I am not sure but maybe this has to do with lack of ambition in many of us; we are not looking to win the Marathon; it’s not so important for us to be The First… it’s as if our goals are not important to us. What goals? The” Journey “is the destination! It’s along this path that human experience takes shape and it’s called “life”… The goal, might be walking besides each other; as simple as that.
Jinoos Taghizadeh

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.

Curated by Arash Fayez

The word “Appropriation” in photography refers to acquiring and taking exclusive possession, and then through the artistic intervention, adapting the concept, structure, form and content of an art work to one’s own. Through this type of adaptation, the delicate distance between imitation and inspiration can be discerned. In fact, “Appropriation Photography” is the re-birth of an art-work. What is ultimately created is inevitably an art that (directly or allegorically) refers one to another art; be it literature, painting, self-portrait, or others. The present collection belongs to some young photographers who consciously, and without anguish, have borrowed and extracted from the works of others. Ultimately what seems attractive, is the attention of the new generation of Iranian photographers to a recent and contemporary subject of “Appropriation Photography” and that how in the footsteps of the great artists, if they have not portrayed more attractive works, they are nonetheless no less than the originals.
Arash Fayez